>^'W 


THEOPHRASTUS  SUCH, 


.TUBAL,  AND  OTHER  POEMS, 


AND 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 


37 

GEOKGE    ELIOT, 


NEW  EDITION— COMPLETE  IN  ONE  VOLUME, 


CHICAGO  AND  NEW  YORK: 

BELFOKD,  CLAKKE  &  CO. 

1886. 
*  OF  GALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  ANGELES 


"  Susplcione  si  quis  errablt  sua, 
Et  rapiet  ad  se,  quod  erit  commune  omnium, 
Stulte  nudabit  animi  conscientiam. 
Huic  excusatum  me  yeh;T.  lihilominus: 
Neque  «-nim  notare  sinjrilos  mens  est  mihi, 
Verum  ipsam  vitam  et  mores  homiiium  ostendere 

' 


PRINTED  AND  BOUND  BY 
DONOHTJE  &  HENNEBEBBY, 

CHICAGO. 


CONTENTS. 


IMPRESSIONS   OF   THEOPHRASTUS   SUCH. 

PAGE 

I.  LOOKING  INWARD,        -       -       -       •    •  -       -       .  7 

II.  LOOKING  BACKWARD,       ......  17 

III.  How  WE  ENCOURAGE  RESEARCH,      ....  39 

IV.  A  MAN  SURPRISED  AT  His  ORIGINALITY,     ...  41 
V.  A  Too  DEFERENTIAL  MAN, 48 

VI.  ONLY  TEMPER, 55 

VIL  A  POLITICAL  MOLECULE,     ......  61 

VIII.  THE  WATCH-DOG  OP  KNOWLEDGE,        ...  65 

IX.  A  HALF-BREED, 71 

X.  DEBASING  THE  MORAL  CURRENCY,        -       -       -  77 

XI.  THE  WASP  CREDITED  WITH  THE  HONEYCOMB,         -  83 

XII.  "So  YOUNG!"-               93 

XIII.  How  WE  COME  TO  GIVE  OURSELVES  FALSE  TESTI- 

MONIALS, AND  BELIEVE  IN  THEM,  -  98 

XIV.  THE  Too  READY  WRITER, 105 

XV.  DISEASES  OF  SMALL  AUTHORSHIP,  -       -       -       -  112 

XVI.  MORAL  SWINDLERS,      --.....  120 

XVII.  SHADOWS  OF  THE  COMING  RACE,   ....  128 

XVIII.  THE  MODERN  HEP!  HEP!-  HEP!         ....  133 


POEMS,   OLD  AND   NEW. 

THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL,       ........    157 

(Reprinted  from  "  Macmillan's  Magazine.") 
AGATHA, 176 

(Reprinted  from  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly.") 
ARMGART, 187 

(Reprinted  from  "  Macmillan's  Magazine.") 
How  LISA  LOVED  THE  KING,  -----..        222 

(Reprinted  from  "  Blackwood's  Magazine.") 

A  MINOR  PROPHET, 288 

BROTHER  AND  SISTER, 246 

STUAOIVARIUB, •••-•251 


212*9270 


6  CONTENTS. 

A  COLLEGE  BREAKFAST  PARTY,      -       -       -       -       -       •  255 
(Reprinted  from  "Macmillan's  Magazine.") 

Two  LOVERS, 275 

SELF  AND  LIFE, 276 

"  SWEET  EVENINGS  COME  AND  Go,  LOVE,"      ....  279 

THE  DEATH  OF  MOSES, 280 

ARION, •  ...  284 

"O  MAY  I  JOIN  THE  CHOIR  INVISIBLE,"     -  -  287 

THE  SPANISH  GYPSY, 289 


IMPKESSICOTS 

OF 

THEOPHBASTUS  SUCH. 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  THEOPHRASTUS  SUCH. 


i. 

LOOKING  INWAED. 

IT  is  my  habit  to  give  an  account  to  myself  of  the 
characters  I  meet  with:  can  I  give  any  true  account  of  my 
own?  I  am  a  bachelor,  without  domestic  distractions  of 
any  sort,  and  have  all  my  life  been  an  attentive  companion 
to  myself,  flattering  my  nature  agreeably  on  plausible 
occasions,  reviling  it  rather  bitterly  when  it  mortified  me, 
and  in  general  remembering  its  doings  and  sufferings  with 
a  tenacity  which  is  too  apt  to  raise  surprise  if  not  disgust 
at  the  careless  inaccuracy  of  my  acquaintances,  who  impute 
to  me  opinions  I  never  held,  express  their  desire  to  con- 
vert me  to  my  favorite  ideas,  forget  whether  I  have  ever 
been  to  the  East,  and  are  capable  of  being  three  several 
times  astonished  at  my  never  having  told  them  before  of 
my  accident  in  the  Alps,  causing  me  the  nervous  shock 
which  has  ever  since  notably  diminished  my  digestive 
powers.  Surely  I  ought  to  know  myself  better  than  these 
indifferent  outsiders  can  know  me;  nay,  better  even  than 
my  intimate  friends,  to  whom  I  have  never  breathed  those 
items  of  my  inward  experience  which  have  chiefly  shaped 
my  life. 

Yet  I  have  often  been  forced  into  the  reflection  that 
even  the  acquaintances  who  are  as  forgetful  of  my  biogra- 
phy and  tenets  as  they  would  be  if  I  were  a  dead  philoso- 
pher, are  probably  aware  of  certain  points  in  me  which 
may  not  be  included  in  my  most  active  suspicion.  We 
sing  an  exquisite  passage  out  of  tune  and  innocently  repeat 
it  for  the  greater  pleasure  of  our  hearers.  Who  can  be 
aware  of  what  his  foreign  accent  is  in  the  ears  of  a  native? 
And  how  can  a  man  be  conscious  of  that  dull  perception 
which  causes  him  to  mistake  altogether  what  will  make 
him  agreeable  to  a  particular  woman,  and  to  persevere 
i-agerly  in  a  behavior  which  sho  is  privately  recording 

1 


8  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

against  him?  I  have  had  some  confidences  from  my  female 
friends  as  to  their  opinion  of  other  men  whom  I  have 
observed  trying  to  make  themselves  amiable,  and  it  has 
occurred  to  me  that  though  I  can  hardly  be  so  blundering 
as  Lippus  and  the  rest  of  those  mistaken  candidates  for 
favor  whom  1  have  seen  ruining  their  chance  by  a  too 
elaborate  personal  canvass,  I  must  still  come  under  the 
common  fatality  of  mankind  and  share  the  liability  to  be 
absurd  without  knowing  that  I  am  absurd.  It  is  in  the 
nature  of  foolish  reasoning  to  seem  good  to  the  foolish 
reasoner.  Hence  with  all  possible  study  of  myself,  with 
all  possible  effort  to  escape  from  the  pitiable  illusion  which 
makes  men  laugh,  shriek  or  curl  the  lip  at  Folly's  likeness, 
in  total  unconsciousness  that  it  resembles  themselves,  I  am 
obliged  to  recognize  that  while  there  are  secrets  in  me 
unguessed  by  others,  these  others  have  certain  items  of 
knowledge  about  the  extent  of  my  powers  and  the  figure  I 
make  with  them,  which  in  turn  are  secrets  unguessed  by 
me.  When  I  was  a  lad  I  danced  a  hornpipe  with  arduous 
scrupulosity,  and  while  suffering  pangs  of  pallid  shyness 
was  yet  proud  of  my  superiority  as  a  dancing  pupil,  imag- 
ining for  myself  a  high  place  in  the  estimation  of  behold- 
ers; but  I  can  now  picture  the  amusement  they  had  in  the 
incongruity  of  my  solemn  face  and  ridiculous  legs.  What 
sort  of  hornpipe  am  I  dancing  now? 

Thus  if  I  laugh  at  you,  0  fellow-men!  if  I  trace  with 
curious  interest  your  labyrinthine  self-delusions,  note  the 
inconsistencies  in  your  zealous  adhesions,  and  smile 
at  your  helpless  endeavors  in  a  rashly  chosen  part, 
it  is  not  that  I  feel  myself  aloof  from  you:  the  more 
intimately  I  seem  to  discern  your  weaknesses,  the  stronger 
to  me  is  the  proof  that  I  share  them.  How  otherwise 
could  I  get  the  discernment? — for  even  what  we  are  averse 
to,  what  we  vow  not  to  entertain,  must  have  shaped  or 
shadowed  itself  within  us  as  a  possibility  before  we  can 
think  of  exorcising  it.  No  man  can  know  his  brother 
simply  as  a  spectator.  Dear  blunderers,  I  am  one  of  you. 
I  wince  at  the  fact,  but  I  am  not  ignorant  of  it,  that 
I  too  am  laughable  on  unsuspected  occasions;  nay,  in 
the  very  tempest  and  whirlwind  of  rny  anger,  I  include 
myself  under  my  own  indignation.  If  the  human  race 
has  a  bad  reputation,  I  perceive  that  I  cannot  escape 
being  compromised.  And  thus  while  I  carry  in  myself 
the  key  to  other  men's  experience,  it  is  only  by  observ- 
ing others  that  I  can  so  far  correct  my  self-ignorance 


LOOKIXK    IXWARD.  9 

as  to  arrive  at  the  certainty  that  I  am  liable  to  commit 
myself  unawares  and  to  manifest  some  incompetency  which 
I  know  no  more  of  than  the  blind  man  Knows  of  his 
image  in  the  glass. 

Is  it  then  possible  to  describe  oneself  at  once  faithfully 
and  fully?  In  all  autobiography  there  is,  nay,  ought  to  be, 
an  incompleteness  which  may  have  the  effect  of  falsity. 
We  are  each  of  us  bound  to  reticence  by  the  piety  we  owe 
to  those  who  have  been  nearest  to  us  and  have  had  a 
mingled  influence  over  our  lives;  by  the  fellow-feeling 
which  should  restrain  us  from  turning  our  volunteered  and 
picked  confessions  into  an  act  of  accusation  against  others, 
who  have  no  chance  of  vindicating  themselves;  and  most 
of  all  by  that  reverence  for  the  higher  efforts  of  our  com- 
mon nature,  which  commands  us  to  bury  its  lowest 
fatalities,  its  invincible  remnants  of  the  brute,  its  most 
agonizing  struggles  with  temptation,  in  unbroken  silence. 
But  the  incompleteness  which  comes  of  self-ignorance  may 
be  compensated  by  self-betrayal.  A  man  who  is  affected 
to  tears  in  dwelling  on  the  generosity  of  his  own  senti- 
ments makes  me  aware  of  several  things  not  included 
under  those  terms.  Who  has  sinned  more  against  those 
three  duteous  reticences  than  Jean  Jacques?  Yet  half  our 
impressions  of  his  character  come  not  from  what  he  means 
to  convey,  but  from  what  he  unconsciously  enables  us  to 
discern. 

This  naive  veracity  of  self-presentation  is  attainable  by 
the  slenderest  talent  on  the  most  trivial  occasions.  The 
least  lucid  and  impressive  of  orators  may  be  perfectly  suc- 
cessful in  showing  us  the  weak  points  of  his  grammar. 
Hence  I  too  may  be  so  far  like  Jean  Jacques  as  to  com- 
municate more  than  I  am  aware  of.  I  am  not  indeed 
writing  an  autobiography,  or  pretending  to  give  an  unre- 
served description  of  myself,  but  only  offering  some  slight 
confessions  in  an  apologetic  light,  to  indicate  that  if  in  my 
absence  you  dealt  as  freely  with  my  unconscious  weak- 
nesses as  I  have  dealt  with  the  unconscious  weaknesses  of 
others,  I  should  not  feel  myself  warranted  by  common- 
sense  in  regarding  your  freedom  of  observation  as  an 
exceptional  case  of  evil-speaking;  or  as  malignant  inter- 
pretation of  a  character  which  really  offers  no  handle  to 
just  objection;  or  even  as  an  unfair  use  for  your  amuse- 
ment of  disadvantages  which,  since  they  are  mine,  should 
be  regarded  with  more  than  ordinary  tenderness.  Let  me 
at  least  try  to  feel  myself  in  the  ranks  with  my  fellow- 


10  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

*nen.  It  is  true,  that  I  would  rather  not  hear  either  your 
well-founded  ridicule  or  your  judicious  strictures.  Though 
not  averse  to  finding  fault  with  myself,  and  conscious  of 
deserving  lashes,  I  like  to  keep  the  scourge  in  my  own  dis- 
criminating hand.  I  never  felt  myself  sufficiently  merito- 
"ious  to  like  being  hated  as  a  proof  of  my  superiority,  or  so 
thirsty  for  improvement  as  to  desire  that  all  my  acquaint- 
ances should  give  me  their  candid  opinion  of  me.  I  really 
do  not  want  to  learn  from  my  enemies:  L  prefer  having 
none  to  learn  from.  Instead  of  being  glad  when  men  use 
/ne  despitefully,  I  wish  they  would  behave  better  and  find 
a  more  amiable  occupation  for  their  intervals  of  business. 
In  brief,  after  a  close  intimacy  with  myself  for  a  longer 
period  than  I  choose  to  mention,  I  find  within  me  a  per- 
manent longing  for  approbation,  sympathy,  and  love. 

Yet  I  am  a  bachelor,  and  the  person  I  love  best  has 
never  loved  me,  or  known  that  I  loved  her.  Though  con- 
tinually in  society,  and  caring  about  the  joys  and  sorrows 
of  my  neighbors,  I  feel  myself,  so  far  as  my  personal  lot  is 
concerned,  uncared  for  and  alone.  "  Your  own  fault,  my 
dear  fellow! "  said  Minutius  Felix,  one  day  that  I  had 
incautiously  mentioned  this  uninteresting  fact.  And  be 
was  right — in  senses  other  than  he  intended.  Why  should 
I  expect  to  be  admired,  and  have  my  company  doated  on  ? 
I  have  done  no  services  to  my  country  beyond  those  of 
every  peaceable  orderly  citizen;  and  as  to  intellectual  con- 
tribution, my  only  published  work  was  a  failure,  so  that  I  am 
spoken  of  to  inquiring  beholders  as  "the  author  of  a  book 
you  have  probably  not  seen.'"  (The  work  was  a  humorous 
romance,  unique  in  its  kind,  and  I  am  told  is  much  tasted 
in  a  Cherokee  translation,  where  the  jokes  are  rendered 
with  all  the  serious  eloquence  characteristic  of  the  Red 
races.)  This  sort  of  distinction,  as  a  writer  nobody  is 
likely  to  have  read,  can  hardly  counteract  an  indistinctness 
in  my  articulation,  which  the  best-intentioned  loudness 
will  not  remedy.  Then,  in  some  quarters  my  awkward 
feet  are  against  me,  the  length  of  my  upper  lip,  and  an 
inveterate  way  I  have  of  walking  with  my  head  foremost 
and  my  chin  projecting.  One  can  become  only  too  well 
aware  of  such  things  by  looking  in  the  glass,  or  in  that 
other  mirror  held  up  to  nature  in  the  frank  opinions  of 
street-boys,  or  of  our  Free  People  traveling  by  excursion 
train;  and  no  doubt  they  account  for  the  half-suppressed 
smile  which  I  have  observed  on  some  fair  faces  when  I 
have  first  been  presented  before  them.  This  direct  per- 


LOOKING    i; \\VARD.  11 

ceptive  judgment  is  not  to  be  argued  against.  But  I  am 
tempted  to  remonstrate  when  the  physical  points  I  have 
mentioned  are  apparently  taken  to  warrant  unfavorable 
inferences  concerning  my  mental  quickness.  With  all  the 
increasing  uncertainty  which  modern  progress  has  thrown 
over  the  relations  of  mind  and  body,  it  seems  tolerably 
clear  that  wit  cannot  be  seated  in  the  upper  lip,  and  that 
the  balance  of  the  haunches  in  walking  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  subtle  discrimination  of  ideas.  Yet  strangers 
evidently  do  not  expect  me  to  make  a  clever  observation, 
and  my  good  things  are  as  unnoticed  as  if  they  were 
anonymous  pictures.  I  have  indeed  had  the  mixed  satis- 
faction of  finding  that  when  they  were  appropriated  by 
some  one  else  they  were  found  remarkable  and  even  brill- 
iant. It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  I  am  not  rich,  have 
neither  stud  nor  cellar,  and  no  very  high  connections  such 
as  give  to  a  look  of  imbecility  a  certain  prestige  of  inher- 
itance through  a  titled  line;  just  as  " the  Austrian  lip" 
confers  a  grandeur  of  historical  associations  on  a  kind  of 
feature  which  might  make  us  reject  an  advertising  foot- 
man. I  have  now  and  then  done  harm  to  a  good  cause 
by  speaking  for  it  in  public,  and  have  discovered  too  late 
that  my  attitude  on  the  occasion  would  more  suitably  have 
been  that  of  negative  beneficence.  Is  it  really  to  the 
advantage  of  an  opinion  that  I  should  be  known  to  hold 
it?  And  as  to  the  force  of  my  arguments,  that  is  a  second- 
ary consideration  with  audiences  who  have  given  a  new 
scope  to  the  ex  pede  Herculem  principle,  and  from  awk- 
ward feet  infer  awkward  fallacies.  Once,  when  zeal  lifted 
me  on  my  legs,  I  distinctly  heard  an  enlightened  artisan 
remark,  "Here's  a  rum  cut!" — and  doubtless  he  reasoned 
in  the  same  way  as  the  elegant  Glycera  when  she  politely 
puts  on  an  air  of  listening  to  me,  but  elevates  her  eyebrows 
and  chills  her  glance  in  sign  of  predetermined  neutrality: 
both  have  their  reasons  for  judging  the  quality  of  my 
speech  beforehand. 

This  sort  of  reception  to  a  man  of  affectionate  disposi- 
tion, who  has  also  the  innocent  vanity  of  desiring  to  be 
agreeable,  has  naturally  a  depressing  if  not  embittering 
tendency;  and  in  early  life  I  began  to  seek  for  some  con- 
soling point  of  view,  some  warrantable  method  of  softening 
the  hard  peas  I  had  to  walk  on,  some  comfortable  fanati- 
cism which  might  supply  the  needed  self-satisfaction.  At 
one  time  I  dwelt  much  on  the  idea  of  compensation; 
trying  to  believe  that  I  was  all  the  wiser  for  my  bruised 


12  THEOPHKASTTTS' SUCH. 

vanity,  that  I  had  the  higher  place  in  the  true  spiritual 
scale,  and  even  that  a  day  might  come  when  some  visible 
triumph  would  place  me  in  the  French  heaven  of  having 
the  laughers  on  my  side.  But  I  presently  perceived  that 
this  was  a  very  odious  sort  of  self-cajolery.  Was  it  in  the 
least  true  that  I  was  wiser  than  several  of  my  friends  who 
made  an  excellent  figure,  and  were  perhaps  praised  a  little 
beyond  their  merit?  Is  the  ugly  unready  man  in  the  corner, 
outside  the  current  of  conversation,  really  likely  to  have  a 
fairer  view  of  things  than  the  agreeable  talker,  whose 
success  strikes  the  unsuccessful  as  a  repulsive  example  of 
forwardness  and  conceit?  And  as  to  compensation  in 
future  years,  would  the  fact  that  I  myself  got  it  reconcile 
me  to  an  order  of  things  in  which  I  could  see  a  multitude 
with  as  bad  a  share  as  mine,  who,  instead  of  getting  their 
corresponding  compensation,  were  getting  beyond  the 
reach  of  it  in  old  age?  What  could  be  more  contemptible 
than  the  mood  of  mind  which  makes  a  man  measure  the 
justice  of  divine  or  human  law  by  the  agreeableness  of 
his  own  shadow  and  the  ample  satisfaction  of  his  own 
desires? 

I  dropped  a  form  of  consolation  which  seemed  to  be 
encouraging  me  in  the  persuasion  that  my  discontent  was 
the  chief  evil  in  the  world,  and  my  benefit  the  soul  of  good 
in  that  evil.  May  there  not  be  at  least  a  partial  release 
from  the  imprisoning  verdict  that  a  man's  philosophy  is 
the  formula  of  his  personality?  In  certain  branches  of 
science  we  can  ascertain  our  personal  equation,  the  measure 
of  difference  between  our  own  judgments  and  an  average 
standard:  may  there  not  be  some  corresponding  correction 
of  oiv  personal  partialities  in  moral  theorizing?  If  a 
squint  or  other  ocular  defect  disturbs  my  vision,  I  can  get 
instructed  in  the  fact,  be  made  aware  that  my  condition  is 
abnormal,  and  either  through  spectacles  or  diligent  imagi- 
nation I  can  learn  the  average  appearance  of  things:  is 
there  no  remedy  or  corrective  for  that  inward  squint 
vliiel,  consists  in  a  dissatisfied  egoism  or  other  want  of 
L.  ^ntal  balance?  In  my  conscience  I  saw  that  th  j  biap  of 
personal  discontent  was  just  as  misleading  and  odioub  as 
the  bias  of  self-satisfaction.  Whether  we  look  through 
the  rose-colored  glass  or  the  indigo,  we  are  equally  far 
from  the  hues  which  the  healthy  human  eye  beholds  in 
heaven  above  and  earth  below.  I  began  to  dread  ways  of 
consoling  which  were  really  a  nattering  of  native  illusions, 
a  feeding-up  into  monstrosity  of  an  inward  growth  already 


LOOKING   INWARD.  13 

disproportionate;  to  get  an  especial  scorn  for  that  scorn  of 
mankind  which  is  a  transmuted  disappointment  of  prepos- 
terous claims;  to  watch  with  peculiar  alarm  lest  what  1 
called  my  philosophic  estimate  of  the  human  lot  in  general, 
should  be  a  mere  prose  lyric  expressing  my  own  pain  and 
consequent  bad  temper.  The  standing -ground  worth 
striving  after  seemed  to  be  some  Delectable  Mountain, 
whence  I  could  see  things  in  proportions  as  little  as  possi- 
ble determined  by  that  self-partiality  which  certainly 
plays  a  necessary  part  in  our  bodily  sustenance,  but  has  a 
starving  effect  on  the  mind. 

Thus  I  finally  gave  up  any  attempt  to  make  out  that  I 
preferred  cutting  a  bad  figure,  and  that  I  liked  to  be 
despised,  because  in  this  way  I  was  getting  more  virtuous 
than  my  successful  rivals;  and  I  have  long  looked  with 
suspicion  on  all  views  which  are  recommended  as  peculiarly 
consolatory  to  wounded  vanity  or  other  personal  disap- 
pointment. The  consolations  of  egoism  are  simply  a 
change  of  attitude  or  a  resort  to  a  new  kind  of  diet  which 
soothes  and  fattens  it.  Fed  in  this  way  it  is  apt  to  become 
a  monstrous  spiritual  pride,  or  a  chuckling  satisfaction 
that  the  final  balance  will  not  be  against  us  but  against 
those  who  now  eclipse  us.  Examining  the  world  in  order 
to  find  consolation  is  very  much  like  looking  carefully  over 
the  pages  of  a  great  book  in  order  to  find  our  own  name, 
if  not  in  the  text,  at  least  in  a  laudatory  note;  whether 
we  find  what  we  want  or  not,  our  preoccupation  has 
hindered  us  from  a  true  knowledge  of  the  contents.  But 
an  attention  fixed  on  the  main  theme  or  various  matter  of 
the  book  would  deliver  us  from  that  slavish  subjection  to 
our  own  self-importance.  And  I  had  the  mighty  volume 
of  the  world  before  me.  Nay,  I  had  the  struggling  action 
of  a  myriad  lives  around  me,  each  single  ^fe  as  dear  to 
itself  as  mine  to  me.  Was  there  no  escape  here  from  this 
stupidity  of  a  murmuring  self-occupation  ?  Clearly  enough, 
if  anything  hindered  my  thought  from  rising  to  the  force 
of  passionately  interested  contemplation,  or  my  poor  pent 
up  pond  of  sensitiveness  from  widening  into  a  beneficent 
river  of  sympathy,  it  was  my  own  dullness;  and  though  I 
could  not  make  myself  the  reverse  of  shallow  all  at  once,  I 
had  at  least  learned  where  I  had  better  turn  my  attention. 

Something  came  of  this  alteration  in  my  point  of  view, 
though  I  admit  that  the  result  is  of  no  striking  kind.  It 
is  unnecessary  for  me  to  utter  modest  denials,  since  none 
have  assured  me  that  I  have  a  vast  intellectual  scope,  or — 


14  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

what  is  more  surprising,  considering  I  have  done  so  little — 
that  I  might,  if  I  chose,  surpass  any  distinguished  man 
whom  they  wish  to  depreciate.  I  have  not  attained  any 
lofty  peak  of  magnanimity,  nor  would  I  trust  beforehand 
in  my  capability  of  meeting  a  severe  demand  for  moral 
heroism.  But  that  I  have  at  least  succeeded  in  establish- 
ing a  habit  of  mind  which  keeps  watch  against  my  self- 
partiality  and  promotes  a  fair  consideration  of  what 
touches  the  feelings  or  the  fortunes  of  my  neighbors, 
seems  to  be  proved  by  the  ready  confidence  with  which 
men  and  women  appeal  to  my  interest  in  their  experience. 
It  is  gratifying  to  one  who  would  above  all  things  avoid 
the  insanity  of  fancying  himself  a  more  momentous  or 
touching  object  than  he  really  is,  to  find  that  nobody 
expects  from  him  the  least  sign  of  such  mental  aberration, 
and  that  he  is  evidently  held  capable  of  listening  to  all 
kinds  of  personal  outpouring  without  the  least  disposition 
to  become  communicative  in  the  same  way.  This  con- 
firmation of  the  hope  that  my  bearing  is  not  that  of  the 
self-flattering  lunatic  is  given  me  in  ample  measure.  My 
acquaintances  tell  me  unreservedly  of  their  triumphs  and 
their  piques;  explain  their  purposes  at  length,  and  reassure 
me  with  cheerfulness  as  to  their  chances  of  success;  insist 
on  their  theories  and  accept  me  as  a  dummy  with  whom 
they  rehearse  their  side  of  future  discussions;  unwind 
their  coiled-up  griefs  in  relation  to  their  husbands,  or 
recite  to  me  examples  of  feminine  incomprehensibleness 
as  typified  in  their  wives;  mention  frequently  the  fair 
applause  which  their  merits  have  wrung  from  some  persons, 
and  the  attacks  to  which  certain  oblique  motives  have 
stimulated  others.  At  the  time  when  I  was  less  free  from 
superstition  about  my  own  power  of  charming,  I  occasion- 
ally, in  the  glow  of  sympathy  which  embraced  me  and  my 
confiding  friend  on  the  subject  of  his  satisfaction  or 
resentment,  was  urged  to  hint  at  a  corresponding  experi- 
ence in  my  own  case;  but  the  signs  of  a  rapidly  lowering 
pulse  and  spreading  nervous  depression  in  my  previously 
vivacious  interlocutor,  warned  me  that  I  was  acting  on 
that  dangerous  misreading,  "Do  as  you  are  done  by." 
Recalling  the  true  version  of  the  golden  rule,  I  could  not 
wish  that  others  should  lower  my  spirits  as  I  was  lowering 
my  friend's.  After  several  times  obtaining  the  same  result 
from  a  like  experiment  in  which  all  the  circumstances  were 
varied  except  my  own  personality,  I  took  it  as  an  estab- 
lished inference  that  these  fitful  signs  of  a  lingering  belief 


LOOKING    INWARD.  15 

in  my  own  importance  were  generally  felt  to  be  abnormal, 
and  were  something  short  of  that  sanity  which  I  aimed  to 
secure.  Clearness  on  this  point  is  not  without  its  gratifi- 
cations, as  I  have  said.  While  my  desire  to  explain  my- 
self in  private  ears  has  been  quelled,  the  habit  of  getting 
interested  in  the  experience  of  others  has  been  continually 
gathering  strength,  and  I  am  really  at  the  point  of  finding 
that  this  world  would  be  worth  living  in  without  any 
lot  of  one's  own.  Is  it  not  possible  for  me  to  enjoy  the 
scenery  of  the  earth  without  saying  to  myself,  I  have  a 
cabbage-garden  in  it?  But  this  sounds  like  the  lunacy  of 
fancying  one  self  everybody  else  and  being  unable  to  play 
one's  own  part  decently — another  form  of  the  disloyal 
attempt  to  be  independent  of  the  common  lot,  and  to  live 
without  a  sharing  of  pain. 

Perhaps  1  have  made  self-betrayals  enough  already  to 
show  that  I  have  not  arrived  at  that  non-human  independ- 
ence. My  conversational  reticences  about  myself  turn 
into  garrulousness  on  paper — as  the  sea-lion  plunges  and 
swims  the  more  energetically  because  his  limbs  are  of  a 
sort  to  make  him  shambling  on  land.  The  act  of  writing, 
in  spite  of  past  experience,  brings  with  it  the  vague,  de- 
lightful illusion  of  an  audience  nearer  to  my  idiom  than 
the  Cherokees,  and  more  numerous  than  the  visionary  One 
for  whom  many  authors  have  declared  themselves  willing 
to  go  through  the  pleasing  punishment  of  publication. 
My  illusion  is  of  a  more  liberal  kind,  and  I  imagine  a  far- 
off,  hazy,  multitudinous  assemblage,  as  in  a  picture  of 
Paradise,  making  an  approving  chorus  to  the  sentences 
and  paragraphs  of  which  I  myself  particularly  enjoy  the 
writing.  The  haze  is  a  necessary  condition.  If  any  physiog- 
nomy becomes  distinct  in  the  foreground,  it  is  fatal.  The 
countenance  is  sure  to  be  one  bent  on  discountenancing 
my  innocent  intentions:  it  is  pale-eyed,  incapable  of  being 
amused  when  I  am  amused  or  indignant  at  what  makes 
me  indignant;  it  stares  at  my  presumption,  pities  my  igno- 
rance, or  is  manifestly  preparing  to  expose  the  various 
instances  in  which  I  unconsciously  disgrace  myself.  I 
Rhudder  at  this  too  corporeal  auditor,  and  turn  toward 
another  point  of  the  compass  where  the  haze  is  unbroken. 
AVhy  should  I  not  indulge  this  remaining  illusion,  since  I 
do  not  take  my  approving  choral  paradise  as  a  warrant  for 
setting  the  press  to  work  again  and  making  some  thousand 
sheets  of  superior  paper  unsaleable?  I  leave  my  manu- 
scripts to  a  judgment  outside  my  imagination,  but  I  will 


16  THEOPHRASTUS    SITCH. 

not  ask  to  hear  it,  or  request  my  friend  to  pronounce,  before 
I  have  been  buried  decently,  what  he  really  thinks  of  my 
parts,  and  to  state  candidly  whether  my  papers  would  be 
most  usefully  applied  in  lighting  the  cheerful  domestic  fire. 
It  is  too  probable  that  he  will  be  exasperated  at  the  trouble 
I  have  given  him  of  reading  them;  but  the  consequent 
clearness  and  vivacity  with  which  he  could  demonstrate  to 
me  that  the  fault  of  my  manuscripts,  as  of  my  one  pub- 
lished work,  is  simply  flatness  and  not  that  surpassing 
snbtilty  which  is  the  preferable  ground  of  popular  neg- 
lect— this  verdict,  however  instructively  expressed,  is  a 
portion  of  earthly  discipline  of  which  I  will  not  beseech  my 
friend  to  be  the  instrument.  Other  persons,  I  am  aware, 
have  not  the  same  cowardly  shrinking  from  a  candid 
opinion  of  their  performances,  and  are  even  importunately 
eager  for  it;  but  I  have  convinced  myself  in  numerous 
cases  that  such  exposers  of  their  own  back  to  the  smiter 
were  of  too  hopeful  a  disposition  to  believe  in  the  scourge, 
and  really  trusted  in  a  pleasant  anointing,  an  outpouring 
of  balm  without  any  previous  wounds.  I  am  of  a  less 
trusting  disposition,  and  will  only  ask  my  friend  to  use 
his  judgment  in  insuring  me  against  posthumous  mistake. 
Thus  I  make  myself  a  charter  to  write  and  keep  the 
pleasing,  inspiring  illusion  of  being  listened  to,  though  I 
may  sometimes  write  about  myself.  What  I  have  already 
said  on  this  too  familiar  thejne  has  been  meant  only  as  a 
preface,  to  show  that  in  noting  the  weaknesses  of  my 
acquaintances  I  am  conscious  of  my  fellowship  with  them. 
That  a  gratified  sense  of  superiority  is  at  the  root  of  bar- 
barous laughter  may  be  at  least  half  the  truth.  But  there 
is  a  loving  laughter  in  which  the  only  recognized  superiority 
is  that  of  the  ideal  self,  the  God  within,  holding  the  mirror 
and  the  scourge  for  our  own  pettiness  as  well  as  our 
neighbors'. 


LOOKING   BACKWABD.  17 


n. 

LOOKING  BACKWAKD. 

MOST  of  us  who  have  had  decent  parents  would  shrink 
from  wishing  that  our  father  and  mother  had  been  some- 
body else  whom  we  never  knew;  yet  it  is  held  no  impiety, 
rather,  ti  graceful  mark  of  instruction,  for  a  man  to  wail 
that  he  was  not  the  son  of  another  age  and  another  nation, 
of  which  also  he  knows  nothing  except  through  the  easy 
process  of  an  imperfect  imagination  and  a  flattering  fancy. 

But  the  period  thus  looked  back  on  with  a  purely  ad- 
miring regret,  as  perfect  enough  to  suit  a  superior  mind, 
is  always  a  long  way  off;*the  desirable  contemporaries  are 
hardly  nearer  than  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  most  likely  they 
are  the  fellow-citizens  of  Pericles,  or,  best  of  all,  of  the 
^Eolic  lyrists  whose  sparse  remains  suggest  a  comfortable 
contrast  with  our  redundance.  No  impassioned  personage 
wishes  he  had  been  born  in  the  age  of  Pitt,  that  his 
ardent  youth  might  have  eaten  the  dearest  bread,  dressed 
itself  with  the  longest  coat-tails  and  the  shortest  waist,  or 
heard  the  loudest  grumbling  at  the  heaviest  war-taxes; 
and  it  would  be  really  something  original  in  polished 
verse  if  one  of  our  young  writers  declared  he  would 
gladly  be  turned  eighty-five  that  he  might  have  known 
the  joy  and  pride  of  being  an  Englishman  when  there 
were  fewer  reforms  and  plenty  of  highwaymen,  fewer 
discoveries  and  more  faces  pitted  with  the  small-pox,  when 
laws  were  made  to  keep  up  the  price  of  corn,  and  the 
troublesome  Irish  were  more  miserable.  Three  quarters  of 
a  century  ago  is  not  a  distance  that  lends  much  enchant- 
ment to  the  view.  We  are  familiar  with  the  average  men 
of  that  period,  and  are  still  consciously  encumbered  with 
its  bad  contrivances  and  mistaken  acts.  The  lords  and 
gentlemen  painted  by  young  Lawrence  talked  and  wrote 
their  nonsense  in  a  tongue  we  thoroughly  understand; 
hence  their  times  are  not  much  flattered,  not  much  glori- 
fied by  the  yearnings  of  that  modern  sect  of  Flaggellants 
who  make  a  ritual  of  lashing — not  themselves  but  —  all 
their  neighbors.  To  me,  however,  that  paternal  time,  the 
time  of  my  father's  youth,  never  seemed  prosaic,  for  it 
2 


18  TFEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

came  to  my  imagination  first  through  his  memories,  which 
made  a  wondrous  perspective  to  my  little  daily  world  of 
discovery.  And,  for  my  part,  .  can  call  no  age  absolutely 
unpoetic:  how  should  it  be  so,  since  there  are  always  chil- 
dren to  whom  the  acorns  and  the  swallow's  eggs  are 
a  wonder,  always  those  human  passions  and  fatalities 
( ii  rough  which  Garrick  as  Hamlet  in  bob-wig  and  knee- 
breeches  moved  his  audience  more  than  some  have  since 
done  in  velvet  tunic  and  plume?  But  every  age  since  the 
golden  may  be  made  more  or  less  prosaic  by  minds  that 
attend  only  to  its  vulgar  and  sordid  elements,  of  which 
there  was  always  an  abundance  even  in  Greece  and  Italy, 
the  favorite  realms  of  the  retrospective  optimists.  To  be 
quite  fair  toward  the  ages,  a  little  ugliness  as  well  as  beauty 
must  be  allowed  to  each  of  them,  a  little  implicit  poetry 
even  to  those  which  echoed  loudest  with  servile,  pompous, 
and  trivial  prose. 

Such  impartiality  is  not  in  vogue  at  present.  If  we 
acknowledge  our  obligation  to  the  ancients,  it  is  hardly  to 
be  done  without  some  flouting  of  our  contemporaries,  who 
with  all  their  faults  must  be  allowed  the  merit  of  keeping 
the  world  habitable  for  the  refined  eulogists  of  the  blame- 
less past.  One  wonders  whether  the  remarkable  origina- 
tors who  first  had  the  notion  of  digging  wells,  or  of 
churning  for  butter,  and  who  were  certainly  very  useful  to 
their  own  time  as  well  as  ours,  were  left  quite  free  from 
invidious  comparison  with  predecessors  who  let  the  water 
and  the  milk  alone,  or  whether  some  rhetorical  nomad,  as 
he  stretched  himself  on  the  grass  with  a  good  appetite  for 
contemporary  butter,  became  loud  on  the  virtue  of  ances- 
tors who  were  uncorrupted  by  the  produce  of  the  cow; 
nay,  whether  in  a  high  flight  of  imaginative  self-sacrifice 
(after  swallowing  the  butter)  he  even  wished  himself  earlier 
born  and  already  eaten  for  the  sustenance  of  a  generation 
more  naive  than  his  own. 

I  have  often  had  the  fool's  hectic  of  wishing  about  the 
unalterable,  but  with  me  that  useless  exercise  has  turned 
chiefly  on  the  conception  of  a  different  self,  and  not,  as  il 
usually  does  in  literature,  on  the  advantage  of  having  been 
born  in  a  different  age,  and  more  •  especially  in  one  where 
life  is  imagined  to  have  been  altogether  majestic  and  grace- 
ful. With  my  present  abilities,  extern  il  proportions,  and 
generally  small  provision  for  ecstatic  enjoyment,  where  is 
the  ground  for  confidence  that  I  should  have  had  a  prefer- 
able career  in  such  an  epoch  of  society?  An  age  in  which 


LOOKING   BACKWAfiD.  19 

every  department  has  its  awkward-squad  seems  in  my 
mind's  eye  to  suit  me  better.  I  might  have  wandered  by 
the  Stryinon  under  Philip  and  Alexander  without  throw- 
ing any  new  light  on  method  or  organizing  the  sum  of 
human  knowledge;  on  the  other  hand,  I  might  have 
objected  to  Aristotle  as  too  much  of  a  system  at  izer,  and 
have  preferred  the  freedom  of  a  little  self-contradiction  as 
offering  more  chances  of  truth.  I  gather,  too,  from  the 
undeniable  testimony  of  his  disciple  Theophrastus  that 
there  were  bores,  '11-bred  persons,  and  detractors  even  in 
Athens,  of  species  remarkably  corresponding  to  the 
English,  and  not  yet  made  endurable  by  being  classic; 
and,  altogether,  with  my  present  fastidious  nostril,  I  feel 
that  I  am  the  better  off  for  possessing  Athenian  life  solely 
as  an  inodorous  fragment  of  antiquity.  As  to  Sappho's 
Mitylene,  while  I  am  convinced  that  the  Lesbian  capital 
held  some  plain  men  of  middle  stature  and  slow  conversa- 
tional powers,  the  addition  of  myself  to  their  number, 
though  clad  in  the  majestic  folds  of  the  himation  and 
wit  hunt  cravat,  would  hardly  have  made  a  sensation  among 
the  accomplished  fair  ones  who  were  so  precise  in  adjusting 
their  own  drapery  about  their  delicate  ankles.  Whereas 
by  being  another  sort  of  person  in  the  present  age  I  might 
have  given  it  some  needful  theoretic  clue.  Or  I  might 
have  poured  forth  poetic  strains  which  would  have  antici- 
pated theory  and  seemed  a  voice  from 

"  the  prophetic  soul 
Of  the  wide  world  dreaming:  of  things  to  come." 

Or  I  might  have  been  one  of  those  benignant,  lovely  souls 
who,  without  astonishing  the  public  and  posterity,  make  a 
happy  difference  in  the  lives  close  around  them,  and  in 
this  way  lift  the  average  of  earthly  joy.  In  some  form  or 
other  I  might  have  been  so  filled  from  the  store  of  universal 
existence  that  I  should  have  been  freed  from  that  empty 
wishing  which  is  like  a  child's  cry  to  be  inside  a  golden 
cloud,  its  imagination  being  too  ignorant  to  figure  the 
lining  of  dimness  and  damp. 

On  the  whole,  though  there  is  some  rasli  boasting  about 
enlightenment,  and  an-occasional  insistence  on  an  origi- 
nality which  is  that  of  the  present  year's  corn  crop,  we  seem 
too  much  disposed  to  indulge,  and  to  call  by  compliment- 
ary names,  a  greater  charity  for  other  portions  of  the 
human  race  than  for  our  contemporaries.  All  reverence 
and  gratitude  for  the  worthy  Dead  on  whose  labors  we 


20  THEOPHRASTTJS    SUCH. 

have  entered,  all  care  for  the  future  generations  whose  lot 
we  are  preparing;  but  some  affection  and  fairness  for  those 
who  are  doing  the  actual  work  of  the  world,  some  attempt 
to  regard  them  with  the  same  freedom  from  ill-temper, 
whether  on  private  or  public  grounds,  as  we  may  hope  will 
be  felt  by  those  who  will  call  us  ancient!  Otherwise,  the 
looking  before  and  after,  which  is  our  grand  human  privi- 
lege, is  in  danger  of  turning  to  a  sort  of  other-worldliness, 
breeding  a  more  illogical  indifference  or  bitterness  than 
was  ever  bred  by  the  ascetic's  contemplation  of  heaven. 
Except  on  the  ground  of  a  primitive  golden  age  and  con- 
tinuous degeneracy,  1  see  no  rational  footing  for  scorning 
the  whole  present  population  of  the  globe,  unless  I  scorn 
every  previous  generation  from  whom  they  have  inherited 
their  diseases  of  mind  and  body,  and  by  consequence  scorn 
my  own  scorn,  which  is  equally  an  inheritance  of  mixed 
ideas  and  feelings  concocted  for  me  in  the  boiling  caldron 
of  this  ui.  ersally  contemptible  life,  and  so  on — scorning 
to  infinity.  This  may  represent  some  actual  states  of 
mind,  for  it  is  a  narrow  prejudice  of  mathematicians  to 
suppose  that  ways  of  thinking  are  to  be  driven  out  of  the 
field  by  being  reduced  to  an  absurdity.  The  Absurd  is 
taken  as  an  excellent  juicy  thistle  by  many  constitutions. 

Reflections  of  this  sort  have  gradually  determined  me 
not  to  grumble  at  the  age  in  which  I  happen  to  have  been 
born — a  natural  tendency  certainly  older  than  Hesiod. 
Many  ancient  beautiful  things  are  lost,  many  ugly  modern 
things  have  arisen;  but  invert  the  proposition  and  it  is 
equally  true.  I  at  least  am  a  modern  with  some  interest 
in  advocating  tolerance,  and  notwithstanding  an  inborn 
beguilement  which  carries  my  affection  and  regret  continu- 
ally into  an  imagined  past,  I  am  aware  that  I  must  lose  all 
sense  of  moral  proportion  unless  I  keep  alive  a  stronger 
attachment  to  what  is  near,  and  a  power  of  admiring  what 
I  best  know  and  understand.  Hence  this  question  of 
wishing  to  be  rid  of  one's  contemporaries  associates  itself 
with  my  filial  feeling,  and  calls  up  the  thought  that  I 
might  as  justifiably  wish  that  I  had  had  othei  parent  .a 
than  those  whose  loving  tones  are  my  earliest  memory,  and 
whose  last  parting  first  taught  me  the  meaning  of  death. 
I  feel  bound  to  quell  such  a  wish  as  blasphemy. 

Besides,  there  are  other  reasons  why  I  am  contented  that 
my  father  was  a  country  parson,  born  much  about  the 
same  time  as  Scott  and  Wordsworth;  notwithstanding 
certain  qualms  I  have  felt  at  the  fact  that  the  property  on 


LOOKING    BACKWARD.  21 

which  I  am  living  was  saved  out  of  tithe  before  the  period 
of  commutation,  and  without  the  provisional  transfigura- 
tion into  a  modus.  It  has  sometimes  occurred  to  me  when  I 
have  been  taking  a  slice  of  excellent  ham  that,  from  a  too 
tenable  point  of  view,  I  was  breakfasting  on  a  small 
squealing  black  pig  which,  more  than  half  a  century  ago, 
was  the  unwilling  representative  of  spiritual  advantages 
not  otherwise  acknowledged  by  the  grudging  farmer  or 
dairyman  who  parted  with  him.  One  enters  on  a  fearful 
labyrinth  in  tracing  compound  interest  backward,  and 
such  complications  of  bought  have  reduced  the  flavor  of 
the  ham;  but  since  I  have  nevertheless  eaten  it,  the  chief 
effect  has  been  to  moderate  the  severity  of  my  radicalism 
(which  was  not  part  of  my  paternal  inheritance)  and  to 
raise  the  assuaging  reflection,  that  if  the  pig  and  the 
parishioner  had  been  intelligent  enough  to  anticipate  my 
historical  point  of  view,  they  would  have  seen  themselves 
and  the  rector  in  a  light  that  would  have  made  tithe  volun- 
tary. Notwithstanding  such  drawbacks  I  am  rather  fond 
of  the  mental  furniture  I  got  by  having  a  father  who  was 
well  acquainted  with  all  ranks  of  his  neighbors,  and  am 
thankful  that  he  was  not  one  of  those  aristocratic  clergy- 
men who  could  not  have  sat  down  to  a  meal  with  any 
family  in  the  parish  except  my  lord's — still  more  that  he 
was  not  an  earl  or  a  marquis.  A  chief  misfortune  of  high 
birth  is  that  it  usually  shuts  a  man  out  from  the  large 
sympathetic  knowledge  of  human  experience  \.hich  comes 
from  contact  with  various  classes  on  their  own  level,  and 
in  my  father's  time  that  entail  of  social  ignorance  had  not 
been  disturbed  as  we  see  it  now.  To  look  always  from 
overhead  at  the  crowd  of  one's  fellow-men  must  be  in 
many  ways  incapacitating,  even  with  the  best  will  and 
intelligence.  The  serious  blunders  it  must  lead  to  in  the 
effort  to  manage  them  for  their  good,  one  may  see  clearly 
by  the  mistaken  ways  people  take  of  flattering  and  enticing 
others  whose  associations  are  unlike  their  own.  Hence  I 
have  always  thought  that  the  most  fortunate  Britons  are 
those  whose  experience  has  given  them  a  practical  share  in 
many  aspects  of  the  national  lot,  who  have  lived  long 
among  the  mixed  commonality,  roughing  it  with  them 
under  difficulties;  knowing  how  their  food  tastes  to  them, 
and  getting  acquainted  with  their  notions  and  motives  not 
by  inference  from  traditional  types  in  literature  or  from 
philosophical  theories,  but  from  daily  fellowship  and 
observation.  Of  course  such  experience  is  apt  to  get 


22  THEOPHEASTUS    SUCH. 

antiquated,  and  my  father  might  find  himself  much  at  a 
loss  amongst  a  mixed  rural  population  of  the  present  day; 
but  he  knew  very  well  what  could  be  wisely  expected  from 
the  miners,  the  weavers,  the  field-laborers,  and  the  farmers 
of  his  own  time — yes,  and  from  the  aristocracy,  for  he  had 
been  brought  up  in  close  contact  with  them  and  had  been 
companion  to  a  young  nobleman  who  was  deaf  and  dumb. 
"A  clergyman,  lad,"  he  used  to  say  to  me,  "should  feel 
in  himself  a  bit  of  every  class";  and  this  theory  had  a 
felicitous  agreement  with  his  inclination  and  practice, 
which  certainly  answered  in  making  him  beloved  by  his 
parishioners.  They  grumbled  at  their  obligations  toward 
liim;  but  what  then?  It  was  natural  to  grumble  at  any 
demand  for  payment,  tithe  included,  but  also  natural  for 
a  rector  to  desire  his  tithe  and  look  well  after  the  levying. 
A  Christian  pastor  who  did  not  mind  about  his  money  was 
not  an  ideal  prevalent  among  the  rural  minds  of  fat  central 
England,  and  might  have  seemed  to  introduce  a  dangerous 
laxity  of  supposition  about  Christian  laymen  who  happened 
to  be  creditors.  My  father  was  none  the  less  beloved 
because  he  was  understood  to  be  of  a  saving  disposition, 
and  how  could  he  save  without  getting  his  tithe?  The 
sight  of  him  was  not  unwelcome  at  any  door;  and  he  was 
remarkable  among  the  clergy  of  his  district  for  having  no 
lasting  feud  with  rich  or  poor  in  his  parish.  I  profited  by 
his  popularity,  and  for  months  after  my  mother's  death, 
when  I  was  a  little  fellow  of  nine,  I  was  taken  care  of 
first  at  one  homestead  and  then  at  another,  a  variety  which 
I  enjoyed  much  more  than  my  stay  at  the  Hall,  where 
there  was  a  tutor.  Afterward  for  several  years  I  was 
my  father's  constant  companion  in  his  outdoor  business, 
riding  by  his  side  on  my  little  pony  and  listening  to 
the  lengthy  dialogues  he  held  with  Darby  or  Joan,  the 
one  on  the  road  or  in  the  fields,  the  other  outside  or 
inside  her  door.  In  my  earliest  remembrance  of  him  his 
hair  was  already  gray,  for  I  was  his  youngest  as  well  as  his 
only  surviving  child;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  advanced 
age  was  appropriate  to  a  father,  as  indeed  in  all  respects  I 
consider  him  a  parent  so  much  to  my  honor,  that  the  men- 
tion of  my  relationship  to  him  was  likely  to  secure  me 
regard  among  those  to  whom  I  was  otherwise  a  stranger — 
my  father's  stories  from  his  life  including  so  many  names 
of  distant  persons  that  my  imagination  placed  no  limit  to 
his  acquaintanceship.  He  was  a  pithy  talker,  and  his  ser- 
mons bore  marks  of  his  own  composition.  It  is  true,  they 


LOOKING    BACK  \V.\K  I>.  23 

must  have  been  already  old  when  I  began  to  listen  to  them, 
and  they  were  no  more  than  a  year's  supply,  so  that  they 
recurred  as  regularly  as  the  Collects.  But  though  this  sys- 
tem has  been  much  ridiculed,  I  am  prepared  to  defend  it 
as  equally  sound  with  that  of  a  liturgy;  and  even  if  my 
researches  had  shown  me  that  some  of  my  father's  yearly 
sermons  had  been  copied  out  from  the  works  of  elder 
divines,  this  would  only  have  been  another  proof  of  his 
good  judgment.  One  may  prefer  fresh  eggs  though  laid 
by  a  fowl  of  the  meanest  understanding,  but  why  fresh 
sermons? 

Xor  can  I  be  sorry,  though  myself  given  to  meditative 
if  not  active  innovation,  that  my  father  was  a  Tory  who 
had  not  exactly  a  dislike  to  innovators  and  dissenters,  but 
a  slight  opinion  of  them  as  persons  of  ill-founded  self- 
confidence;  whence  my  young  ears  gathered  many  details 
concerning  those  who  might  perhaps  have  called  them- 
selves the  more  advanced  thinkers  in  our  nearest  market- 
town,  tending  to  convince  me  that  their  characters  were 
quite  as  mixed  as  those  of  the  thinkers  behind  them.  This 
circumstance  of  my  rearing  has  at  least  delivered  me  from 
certain  mistakes  of  classification  which  I  observe  in  many 
of  my  superiors,  who  have  apparently  no  affectionate 
memories  of  a  goodness  mingled  with  what  they  now  regard 
as  outworn  prejudices.  Indeed,  my  philosophical  notions, 
such  as  they  are,  continually  carry  me  back  to  the  time 
when  the  fitful  gleams  of  a  spring  day  used  to  show  me  my 
own  shadow  as  that  of  a  small  boy  on  a  small  pony,  riding 
by  the  side  of  a  larger  cob-mounted  shadow  over  the  breezy 
uplands  which  we  used  to  dignify  with  the  name  of  hills, 
or  along  by-roads  with  broad  grassy  borders  and  hedge- 
rows reckless  of  utility,  on  our  way  to  outlying  hamlets, 
whose  groups  of  inhabitants  were  as  distinctive  to  my 
imagination  as  if  they  had  belonged  to  different  regions  of 
the  globe.  From  these  we  sometimes  rode  onward  to  the 
adjoining  parish,  where  also  my  father  officiated,  for  lie 
was  a  pluralist,  but — I  hasten  to  add — on  the  smallest 
scale;  for  his  one  extra  living  was  a  poor  vicarage,  with 
hardly  fifty  parishioners,  and  its  church  would  have  made 
a  very  shabby  barn,  the  gray  worm-eaten  wood  of  its  pews 
and  pulpit,  with  their  doors  only  half  hanging  on  the 
hinges,  being  exactly  the  color  of  a  lean  mouse  which  I 
once  observed  a.s  an  interesting  member  of  the  scant  con 
gregation.  and  conjectured  to  be  the  identical  church  mouse 
I  hud  heard  referred  to  as  an  example  of  extreme  poverty; 


24  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

for  I  was  a  precocious  boy,  and  often  reasoned  after  the 
fashion  of  my  elders,,  arguing  that  "  Jack  and  Jill"  were 
real  personages  in  our  parish,  and  that  if  I  could  identify 
"Jack"  I  should  find  on  him  the  marks  of  abroken  crown. 
Sometimes  when  I  am  in  a  crowded  London  drawing- 
room  (for  I  am  a  town-bird  now,  acquainted  with  smoky 
eaves,  and  tasting  Nature  in  the  parks)  quick  nights  of 
memory  take  me  back  among  my  father's  parishioners 
while  I  am  still  conscious  of  elbowing  men  who  wear  the 
same  evening  uniform  as  myself;  and  I  presently  begin  to 
wonder  what  varieties  of  history  lie  hidden  under  this 
monotony  of  aspect.  Some  of  them,  perhaps,  b"'ong  to 
families  with  many  quarterings;  but  how  many  "  quarter- 
ings  "  of  diverse  contact  with  their  fellow-countrymen  enter 
into  their  qualifications  to  be  parliamentary  leaders,  pro- 
fessors of  social  science,  or  journalistic  guides  of  the  popu- 
lar mind?  Not  that  I  feel  myself  a  person  made  competent 
by  experience;  on  the  contrary,  I  argue  that  since  an 
observation  of  different  ranks  has  still  left  me  practically  a 
poor  creature,  what  must  be  the  condition  of  those  who 
object  even  to  read  about  the  life  of  other  British  classes 
than- their  own?  But  of  my  elbowing  neighbors  with  their 
crush  hats,  I  usually  imagine  that  the  most  distinguished 
among  them  have  probably  had  a  far  more  instructive 
journey  into  manhood  than  mine.  Here,  perhaps,  is  a 
thought-worn  physiognomy,  seeming  at  the  present  moment 
to  be  classed  as  a  mere  species  of  white  cravat  and  swallow- 
tail, which  may  once,  like  Faraday's,  have  shown  itself  in 
curiously  dubious  embryonic  form  leaning  against  a  cottage 
lintel  in  small  corduroys,  and  hungrily  eating  a  bit  of 
brown  bread  and  bacon;  there  is  a  pair  of  eyes,  now  too 
much  wearied  by  the  gas-light  of  public  assemblies,  that 
once  perhaps  L  arned  to  read  their  native  England  through 
the  same  alphabet  as  mine  —  not  within  the  boundaries  of 
an  ancestral  park,  never  even  being  driven  through  the 
county  town  five  miles  off,  but — among  the  midland  vil- 
lages and  markets,  along  by  the  tree-studded  hedgerows, 
and  where  the  heavy  barges  seem  in  the  distance  to  float 
mysteriously  among  the  rushes  and  the  feathered  grass. 
Our  vision,  both  real  and  ideal,  has  since  then  been  filu  .1 
with  far  other  scenes:  among  eternal  snows  and  stupen- 
dous sun-scorched  monuments  of  departed  empires;  within 
the  scent  of  the  long  orange-groves;  and  where  the  temple 
of  Neptune  looks  out  over  the  siren-haunted  sea.  But  my 
eyes  at  least  have  kept  their  early  affectionate  joy  in  our 


LOOKING      '  AC  K  WARD.  25 

native  landscape,  which  is  one  deep  root  of  our  national 
life  and  language. 

And  I  often  smile  at  my  consciousness  that  certain  con- 
servative prepossessions  have  mingled  themselves  for  me 
with  the  influences  of  our  midland  scenery,  from  the  tops 
of  the  elms  down  to  the  buttercups  and  the  little  wayside 
vetches.  Naturally  enough.  That  part  of  my  father's 
prime  to  which  he  oftenest  referred  had  fallen  on  the  days 
when  the  great  wave  of  political  enthusiasm  and  belief  in 
a  speedy  regeneration  of  all  things  had  ebbed,  and  the 
supposed  millennial  initiative  of  France  was  turning  into 
a  Napoleonic  empire,  the  sway  of  an  Attila  with  a  mouth 
speaking  proud  things  in  a  jargon  half  revolutionary,  half 
Roman.  Men  were  beginning  to  shrink  timidly  from  the 
memory  of  their  own  words  and  from  the  recognition  of 
the  fellowships  they  had  formed  ten  years  before;  and  even 
reforming  Englishmen  for  the  most  part  were  willing  to 
wait  for  the  perfection  of  society,  if  only  they  could  koep 
their  throats  perfect  and  help  to  drive  away  the  chief 
enemy  of  mankind  from  our  coasts.  To  my  father's  mind 
the  noisy  teachers  of  revolutionary  doctrine  were,  to  speak 
mildly,  a  variable  mixture  of  the  fool  and  the  scoundrel; 
the  welfare  of  the  nation  lay  in  a  strong  government  which 
could  maintain  order;  and  I  was  accustomed  to  hear  him 
utter  the  word  "Government"  in  a  tone  that  charged  it 
with  awe,  and  made  it  part  of  my  effective  religion,  in 
'ontrast  with  the  word  "rebel,"  which  seemed  to  carry 
the  stamp  of  evil  in  its  syllables,  and,  lit  by  the  fact  that 
Satan  was  the  first  rebel,  made  an  argument  dispensing 
with  more  detailed  inquiry.  I  gathered  that  our  national 
troubles  in  the  first  two  decades  of  this  century  were  not 
at  all  due  to  the  mistakes  of  our  administrators;  and  that 
England,  with  its  fine  Church  and  Constitution,  would 
have  been  exceedingly  well  off  if  every  British  subject  had 
been  thankful  for  what  was  provided,  and  had  minded  his 
own  business — if,  for  example,  numerous  Catholics  of  that 
period  had  been  aware  how  very  modest  they  ought  to  be 
considering  they  were  Irish.  The  times,  I  heard,  had  often 
been  bad ;  but  I  was  constantly  hearing  of  "  bad  times " 
as  a  name  for  actual  evenings  and  mornings  when  the 
godfathers  who  gave  them  that  mime  appeared  to  me 
remarkably  comfortable.  Altogether,  my  father's  England 
seemed  to  me  lovable,  laudable,  full  of  good  men,  and 
having  good  rulers,  from  Mr.  Pitt  on  to  the  Duke  of  Well- 
ington, until  he  was  for  emancipating  the  Catholics;  and 


26  THEOPHEASTUS    iSUCH. 

it  was  so  far  from  prosaic  to  me  that  I  looked  into  it  for 
a  more  exciting  romance  than  such  as  I  could  find  in  my 
own  adventures,  which  consisted  mainly  in  fancied  crises 
calling  for  the  resolute  wielding  of  domestic  swords  and 
firearms  against  unapparent  robbers,  rioters,  and  invaders 
who,  it  seemed,  in  my  father's  prime  had  more  chance  of 
being  real.  The  morris-dancers  had  not  then  dwindled  to 
a  ragged  and  almost  vanished  rout  (owing  the  traditional 
name  probably  to  the  historic  fancy  of  our  superannuated 
groom);  also  the  good  old  king  was  alive  and  well,  which 
made  all  the  more  difference  because  I  had  no  notion  what 
he  was  and  did — only  understanding  in  general  that  if  he 
had  been  still  on  the  throne  he  would  have  hindered  every- 
thing that  wise  persons  thought  undesirable. 

Certainly  that  elder  England  with  its  frankly  saleable 
boroughs,  so  cheap  compared  with  the  seats  obtained  under 
the  reformed  method,  and  its  boroughs  kindly  presented 
by  noblemen  desirous  to  encourage  gratitude;  its  prisons 
with  a  miscellaneous  company  of  felons  and  maniacs  and 
without  any  supply  of  water;  its  bloated,  idle  chari- 
ties; its  non-resident,  jovial  clergy;  its  militia-ballot- 
ing; and  above  all,  its  blank  ignorance  of  what  we, 
its  posterity,  should  be  thinking  of  it, — has  great  dif- 
ferences from  the  England  of  to-day.  Yet  we  discern  a 
strong  family  likeness.  Is  there  any  country  which  shows 
at  once  as  much  stability  and  as  much  susceptibility  to 
change  as  ours?  Our  national  life  is  like  that  scenery 
which  I  early  learned  to  love,  not  subject  to  great  convul- 
sions, but  easily  showing  more  or  less  delicate  (sometimes 
melancholy)  effects  from  minor  changes.  Hence  our  mid- 
land plains  have  never  lost  their  familiar  expression  and 
conservative  spirit  for  me;  yet  at  every  other  mile,  since  I 
first  looked  on  them,  some  sign  of  world-wide  change, 
some  new  direction  of  human  labor  has  wrought  itself  into 
what  one  may  call  the  speech  of  the  landscape — in  contract 
with  those  grander  and  vaster  regions  of  the  earth  which 
keep  an  indifferent  aspect  in  the  presence  of  men's  toil  and 
devices.  ,What  does  it  signify  that  a  lilliputian  train 
passes  over  a  viaduct  amidst  the  abysses  of  the  Apennines, 
or  that  a  caravan  laden  with  a  nation's  offerings  creeps 
across  the  unresting  sameness  of  the  desert,  or  that  a  petty 
cloud  of  steam  sweeps  for  an  instant  over  the  face  of  an 
Egyptian  colossus  immovably  submitting  to  its  slow  burial 
beneath  the  sand?  But  our  woodlands  and  pastures,  our 
hedge-parted  corn-fields  and  meadows,  our  bits  of  high 


LOOKING    BACKWARD.  27 

common  where  we  used  to  plant  the  windmills,  our  quiet 
little  rivers  here  and  there  fit  to  turn  a  mill-wheel,  our 
vil luges  along  the  old  coach-roads,  are  all  easily  alterable 
lineaments  that  seem  to  make  the  face  of  our  Motherland 
sympathetic  with  the  laborious  lives  of  her  children.  She 
does  not  take  their  plows  and  wagons  contemptuously,  but 
rather  makes  every  hovel  and  every  sheepfold,  every  railed 
bridge  or  fallen  tree-trunk  an  agreeably  noticeable  inci- 
dent; not  a  mere  speck  in  the  midst  of  unmeasured  vast- 
ness,  but  a  piece  of  our  social  history  in  pictorial  writing. 

Our  rural  tracts — where  no  Babel-chimney  scales  the 
heavens — are  without  mighty  objects  to  fill  the  soul  with 
the  sense  of  an  outer  world  unconquerably  aloof  from  our 
efforts.  The  wastes  are  playgrounds  (and  let  us  try  to 
keep  them  such  for  the  children's  children  who  will  inherit 
no  other  sort  of  demesne);  the  grasses  and  reeds  nod  to 
each  other  over  the  river,  but  we  have  cut  a  canal  close 
l»y;  the  very  heights  laugh  with  corn  in  August  or  lift  the 
plough-team  against  the  sky  in  September.  Then  comes 
a  crowd  of  burly  navvies  with  pickaxes  and  barrows,  and 
while  hardly  a  wrinkle  is  made  in  the  fading  mother's  face 
or  a  new  curve  of  health  in  the  blooming  girl's,  the  hills 
are  cut  through  or  the  breaches  between  them  spanned, 
we  choose  our  level  and  the  white  steam-pennon  flies 
along  it. 

But  because  our  land  shows  this  readiness  to  be  changed, 
all  signs  of  permanence  upon  it  raise  a  tender  attachment 
instead  of  awe:  some  of  us,  at  least,  love  the  scanty  relics 
of  our  forests,  and  are  thankful  if  a  bush  is  left  of  the  old 
hedgerow.  A  crumbling  bit  of  wall  where  the  delicate 
ivy-leaved  toad -flax  hangs  its  light  branches,  or  a  bit  of 
gray  thatch  with  patches  of  dark  moss  on  its  shoulder  and 
a  troop  of  grass-stems  on  its  ridge,  is  a  thing  to  visit.  And 
then  the  tiled  roof  of  cottage  and  homestead,  of  the  long 
cow-shed  where  generations  of  the  milky  mothers  have 
stood  patiently,  of  the  broad-shouldered  barns  where  the 
old-fashioned  flail  once  made  resonant  music,  while  the 
watch-dog  barked  at  the  timidly  venturesome  fowls  making 
pecking  raids  on  the  outflying  grain — the  roofs  that  have 
looked  out  from  among  the  elms  and  walnut-trees,  or  beside 
the  yearly  group  of  hay  and  corn  stacks,  or  below  the 
square  stone  steeple,  gathering  their  gray  or  ochre-tinted 
lichens  and  their  olive-green  mosses  under  all  ministries, — 
let  us  praise  the  sober  harmonies  they  give  to  our  land- 
scape, helping  to  unite  us  pleasantly  with  the  elder  genera- 


28  THEOPilK.VSTUS    SUCH. 

tions  who  tilled  the  soil  for  us  before  we  were  born,  and 
paid  heavier  and  heavier  taxes,  with  much  grumbling,  but 
without  that  deepest  root  of  corruption — the  self-indulgent 
despair  which  cuts  down  and  consumes  and  never  plants. 

But  I  check  myself.  Perhaps  this  England  of  my  affec- 
tions is  half  visionary — a  dream  in  which  things  are  con- 
nected according  to  my  well-fed,  lazy  mood,  and  not  at  all 
by  the  multitudinous  links  of  graver,  sadder  fact,  such  as 
belong  everywhere  to  the  story  of  human  labor.  Well, 
well,  the  illusions  that  began  for  us  when  we  were  less 
acquainted  witli  evil  have  not  lost  their  value  when  we  dis- 
cern them  to  be  illusions.  They  feed  the  ideal  Better,  and 
in  loving  them  still,  we  strengthen  the  precious  habit  of 
loving  something  not  visibly,  tangibly  existent,  but  a 
spiritual  product  of  our  visible  tangible  selves. 

I  cherish  my  childish  loves — the  memory  of  that  warm 
little  nest  where  my  •affections  were  fledged.  Since  then  I 
have  learned  to  care  for  foreign  countries,  for  literatures 
foreign  and  ancient,  for  the  life  of  Continental  towns  doz- 
ing round  old  cathedrals,  for  the  life  of  London,  half  sleep- 
less with  eager  thought  and  strife,  with  indigestion  or  with 
hunger;  and  now  my  consciousness  is  chiefly  of  the  busy, 
anxious  metropolitan  sort.  My  system  responds  sensi- 
tively to  the  London  weather-signs,  political,  social,  liter^ 
ary;  and  my  bachelor's  hearth  is  imbedded  where  by  much 
craning  of  head  and  neck  I  can  catch  sight  of  a  syca- 
more in  the  Square  garden:  I  belong  to  the  "Nation  of 
London. "  Why?  There  have  been  many  voluntary  exiles 
in  the  world,  and  probably  in  the  very  first  exodus  of  the 
patriarchal  Aryans — for  I  am  determined  not  to  fetch  my 
examples  from  races  whose  talk  is  of  uncles  and  no 
fathers — some  of  those  who  sallied  forth  went  for  the  sake 
of  a  loved  companionship,  when  they  would  willingly  have 
kept  sight  of  the  familiar  plains,  and  of  the  hills  to  which 
they  had  first  lifted  up  their  eyes. 


HOW    WE   ENCOURAGE   KESEAKCH.  29 


III. 

HOW  WE  ENCOUKAGE  EESEAECH. 

THE  serene  and  beneficent  goddess  Truth,  like  other 
deities  whose  disposition  lias  been  too  hastily  inferred  from 
that  of  the  men  who  have  invoked  them,  can  hardly  be 
well  pleased  with  much  of  the  worship  paid  to  her  even  in 
this  milder  age,  when  the  stake  and  the  rack  have  ceased 
to  form  part  of  her  ritual.  Some  cruelties  still  pass  for 
service  done  in  her  honor:  no  thumb-screw  is  used,  no  iron 
boot,  no  scorching  of  flesh;  but  plenty  of  controversial 
bruising,  laceration,  and  even  life-long  maiming.  Less 
than  formerly;  but  so  long  as  this  sort  of  truth-worship 
has  the  sanction  of  a  public  that  can  often  understand 
nothing  in  a  controversy  except  personal  sarcasm  or 
slanderous  ridicule,  it  is  likely  to  continue.  The  suffer- 
ings of  its  victims  are  often  as  little  regarded  as  those  of 
the  sacrificial  pig  offered  in  old  time,  with  what  we  now 
regard  as  a  sad  miscalculation  ot  effects. 

One  such  victim  is  my  old  acquaintance  Merman. 
Twenty  years  ago  Merman  was  a  young  man  of  promise,  a 
conveyancer,  with  a  practice  which  had  certainly  budded, 
but,  unlike  Aaron's  rod,  seemed  not  destined  to  proceed 
further  in  that  marvelous  activity.  Meanwhile,  he  occu- 
pied himself  in  miscellaneous  periodical  writing  and  in  a 
multifarious  study  of  moral  and  physical  science.  What 
chiefly  attracted  him  in  all  subjects  were  the  vexed  ques- 
tions which  have  the  advantage  of  not  admitting  the 
decisive  proof  or  disproof  that  renders  many  ingenious 
arguments  superannuated.  Not  that  Merman  had  a 
wrangling  disposition:  he  put  all  his  doubts,  queries  and 

Earadoxes  deferentially,  contended  without  unpleasant 
eat  and  only  with  a  sonorous  eagerness  against  the  per- 
sonality of  Homer,  expressed  himself  civilly  though  firmly 
on  the  origin  of  language,  and  had  tact  enough  to  drop  at 
the  right  moment  such  subjects  as  the  ultimate  reduction 
of  all  the  so-called  elementary  substances,  his  own  total 
skepticism  concerning  Manetho's  chronology,  or  even  the 
relation  between  the  magnetic  condition  of  the  earth  and 
the  outbreak  of  revolutionary  tendencies.  Such  flexibility 


30  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

was  naturally  much  helped  by  his  amiable  feeling  toward 
women,  whose  nervous  system,  he  was  convinced,  would 
not  bear  the  continuous  strain  of  difficult  topics;  and  also 
by  his  willingness  to  contribute  a  song  whenever  the  same 
desultory  charmer  proposed  music.  Indeed,  his  tastes 
were  domestic  enough  to  beguile  him  into  marriage  when 
his  resources  were  still  very  moderate  and  partly  uncertain. 
His  friends  wished  that  so  ingenious  and  agreeable  a  fel- 
low might  have  more  prosperity  than  they  ventured  to 
hope  for  him,  their  chief  regret  on  his  account  being  that 
he  did  not  concentrate  his  talent  and  leave  off  forming 
opinions  on  at  least  half  a  dozen  of  the  subjects  over  which 
he  scattered  his  attention,  especially  now  that  he  had  mar- 
ried a  "  nice  little  woman  "  (the  generic  name  for  acquaint- 
ances' wives  when  they  are  not  markedly  disagreeable). 
He  could  not,  they  observed,  want  all  his  various  knowl- 
edge and  Laputan  ideas  for  his  periodical  writing  which 
brought  him  most  of  his  bread,  and  he  would  do  well  to 
use  his  talents  in  getting  a  speciality  that  would  fit  him 
for  a  post.  Perhaps  these  well-disposed  persons  were  a 
little  rash  in  presuming  that  fitness  for  a  post  would  be 
the  surest  ground  for  getting  it;  and,  on  the  whole,  in 
now  looking  back  on  their  wishes  for  Merman,  their  chief 
satisfaction  must  be  that  those  wishes  did  not  contribute 
to  the  actual  result. 

For  in  an  evil  hour  Merman  did  concentrate  himself. 
He  had  for  many  years  taken  into  his  interest  the  compar- 
ative history  of  the  ancient  civilizations,  but  it  had  not 
preoccupied  him  so  as  to  narrow  his  generous  attention  to 
everything  else.  One  sleepless  night,  however  (his  wife 
has  more  than  once  narrated  to  me  the  details  of  an  event 
memorable  to  her  as  the  beginning  of  sorrows),  after 
spending  some  hours  over  the  epoch-making  work  of 
Grampus,  a  new  idea  seized  him  with  regard  to  the  possi- 
ble connection  of  certain  symbolic  monuments  common  to 
widely  scattered  races.  Merman  started  up  in  bed.  The 
night  was  cold,  and  the  sudden  withdrawal  of  warmth 
made  his  wife  first  dream  of  a  snowball,  and  then  cry — 

"What  is  the  matter,  Proteus?" 

"A  great  matter,  Julia.  That  fellow  Grampus,  whose 
book  is  cried  up  as  a  revelation,  is  all  wrong  about  the 
Magicodumbras  and  the  Zuzumotzis,  and  I  have  got  hold 
of  the  right  clue/' 

"Good  gracious!  does  it  matter  so  much?  Don't  drag 
the  clothes,  dear." 


HOW   WE    ENCOURAGE   RESEARCH.  31 

"It  signifies  this,  Julia,  that  if  I  am  right  I  shall  set 
the  world  right;  I  shall  regenerate  history;  I  shall  win  the 
mind  of  Europe  to  a  new  view  of  social  origins;  I  shall 
bruise  the  head  of  many  superstitions." 

"Oh,  no,  dear;  don't  go  too  far  into  things.  Lie  down 
again.  You  have  been  dreaming.  What  are  the  Madico- 
j  urn  bras  and  Zuzitotzums?  I  never  heard  you  talk  of  them 
before.  What  use  can  it  be  troubling  yourself  about  such 
things?  " 

"  That  is  the  way,  Julia — that  is  the  way  wives  alienate 
their  husbands,  and  make  any  hearth  pleasanter  to  him 
than  his  own." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Proteus?" 

•'  Why,  if  a  woman  will  not  try  to  understand  her  hus- 
band's ideas,  or  at  least  to  believe  that  they  are  of  more 
value  than  she  can  understand — if  she  is  to  join  anybody 
who  happens  to  be  against  him,  and  suppose  he  is  a  fool 
because  others  contradict  him — there  is  an  end  of  our  hap- 
piness. That  is  all  I  have  to  say." 

"  Oh,  no,  Proteus,  dear.  I  do  believe  what  you  say  is 
right.  That  is  my  only  guide.  I  am  sure  I  never  have 
any  opinions  in  any  other  way:  I  mean  about  subjects. 
Of  course  there  are  many  little  things  that  would  tease 
you,  that  you  like  me  to  judge  of  for  myself.  I  know  I 
said  once  that  I  did  not  want  you  to  sing  '  Oh,  ruddier  than 
the  cherry,'  because  it  was  not  in  your  voice.  But  I  can- 
not remember  ever  differing  from  you  about  subjects.  I 
never  in  my  life  thought  any  one  cleverer  than  you." 

Julia  Merman  was  really  a  "  nice  little  woman,"  not  one 
of  the  stately  Dians  sometimes  spoken  of  in  those  terms. 
Her  black  silhouette  had  a  very  infantine  aspect,  but  she 
had  discernment  and  wisdom  enough  to  act  on  the  strong 
hint  of  that  memorable  conversation,  never  again  giving 
hei  husband  the  slightest  ground  for  suspecting  that  she 
thought  treasonably  of  his  ideas  in  relation  to  the  Magico- 
dumbras  and  Zuzumotzis,  or  in  the  least  relaxed  her  faith 
in  his  infallibility  because  Europe  was  not  also  convinced 
of  it.  It  was  well  for  her  that  she  did  not  increase  her 
troubles  in  this  way:  but  to  do  her  justice,  what  she  was 
chiefly  anxious  about  was  to  avoid  increasing  her  husband's 
troubles. 

Nut  that  these  were  great  in  the  beginning.  In  the  first 
development  and  writing  out  of  his  scheme,  Merman  had 
a  more  intense  kind  of  intellectual  pleasure  than  he  had 
ever  known  before.  His  face  became  more  radiant,  his 


32  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

general  view  of  human  prospects  more  cheerful.  Fore- 
seeing that  truth  as  presented  hy  himself  would  win  the 
recognition  of  nis  contemporaries,  he  excused  with  much 
liberality  their  rather  rough  treatment  of  other  theorists 
whose  basis  was  less  perfect.  His  own  periodical  criti- 
cisms had  never  before  been  so  amiable;  he  was  sorry  for 
that  unlucky  majority  whom  the  spirit  of  the  age,  or  some 
other  prompting  more  definite  and  local,  compelled  to 
write  without  any  particular  ideas.  The  possession  of  an 
original  theory  which  has  not  yet  been  assailed  must  cer- 
tainly sweeten  the  temper  of  a  man  who  is  not  beforehand 
ill-natured.  And  Merman  was  the  reverse  of  ill-natured. 

But  the  hour  of  publication  came;  and  to  half-a-dozen 
persons,  described  as  the  learned  world  of  two  hemispheres, 
it  became  known  that  Grampus  was  attacked.  This  might 
have  been  a  small  matter;  for  who  or  what  on  earth  that 
is  good  for  anything  is  not  assailed  by  ignorance,  stupid- 
ity, or  malice  —  and  sometimes  even  by  just  objection? 
But  on  examination  it  appeared  that  the  attack  might 
possibly  be  held  damaging,  unless  the  ignorance  of  the 
author  were  well  exposed  and  his  pretended  facts  shown  to 
be  chimeras  of  that  remarkably  hideous  kind  begotten  by 
imperfect  learning  on  the  more  feminine  element  of 
original  incapacity.  Grampus  himself  did  not  immediately 
cut  open  the  volume  which  Merman  had  been  careful  to 
send  him,  not  without  a  very  lively  and  shifting  conception 
of  the  possible  effects  which  the  explosive  gift  might  pro- 
duce on  the  too  eminent  scholar — effects  that  must  cer- 
tainly have  set  in  on  the  third  day  from  the  dispatch  of 
the  parcel.  But  in  point  of  fact,  Grampus  knew  nothing 
of  the  book  until  his  friend  Lord  Narwhal  sent  him  an 
American  newspaper  containing  a  spirited  article  by  the 
well  known  Professor  Sperm  N.  Whale  which  was  rather 
equivocal  in  its  bearing,  the  passages  quoted  from  Merman 
being  of  rather  a  telling  sort,  and  the  paragraphs  which 
seemed  to  blow  defiance  being  unaccountably  feeble,  com- 
ing from  so  distinguished  a  Cetacean.  Then,  by  another 
post,  arrived  letters  from  Butzkopf  and  Dugong.  both  men 
whose  signatures  were  familiar  to  the  Teutonic  world  in 
the  Selten-ersclieinende  Monat-schrift  or  Hayrick  for  the 
insertion  of  Split  Hairs,  asking  their  Master  whether  he 
meant  to  take  up  the  combat,  because,  in  the  contrary 
case,  both  were  ready. 

Thus  America  and  Germany  were  roused,  though  Eng 
land  was  still  drowsy,  and  it  seemed  time  now  for  Grampus 


HOW    WE   ENCOURAGE   RESEARCH.  33 

to  find  Merman's  book  under  the  heap  and  cut  it  open. 
For  his  own  part,  he  was  perfectly  at  ease  about  his  sys- 
tem; but  this  is  a  world  in  which  the  truth  requires 
defense,  and  specious  falsehood  must  be  met  with  expos- 
ure. Grampus  having  once  looked  through  the  book,  no 
longer  wanted  any  urging  to  write  the  most  crushing  of 
replies.  This,  and  nothing  less  than  this,  was  due  from 
him  to  Ihe  cause  of  sound  inquiry;  and  the  punishment 
would  cost  him  little  pains.  In  three  weeks  from  that 
time  the  palpitating  Merman  saw  his  book  announced  in 
the  programme  of  the  leading  Keview.  No  need  for 
Grampus  to  put  his  signature.  Who  else  had  his  vast  yet 
microscopic  knowledge,  who  else  his  power  of  epithet? 
This  article  in  which  Merman  was  pilloried  and  as  good  as 
mutilated — for  he  was  shown  to  have  neither  ear  nor  nose 
for  the  subtleties  of  philological  and  archaeological  study — 
AMIS  much  read  and  more  talked  of,  not  because  of  any 
interest  in  the  system  of  Grampus,  or  any  precise  concep- 
tion of  the  danger  attending  lax  views  of  the  Magicodum- 
bras  and  Zuzumotzis,  but  because  the  sharp  epigrams  with 
which  the  victim  was  lacerated,  and  the  soaring  fountains 
of  acrid  mud  which  were  shot  upward  and  poured  over  the 
fresh  wounds,  were  found  amusing  in  recital.  A  favorite 
passage  was  one  in  which  a  certain  kind  of  sciolist  was 
described  as  a  creature  of  the  Walrus  kind,  having  a  phan- 
tasmal resemblance  to  higher  animals  when  seen  by  igno- 
rant minds  in  the  twilight,  dabbling  or  hobbling  in  first 
one  element  and  then  the  other,  without  parts  or  organs 
suited  to  either,  in  fact,  one  of  Nature's  impostors  who 
could  not  be  said  to  have  any  artful  pretenses,  since  a  con- 
genital incompetence  to  all  precision  of  aim  and  movement 
made  their  every  action  a  pretense — just  as  a  being  born 
in  doeskin  gloves  would  necessarily  pass  a  judgment  on 
surfaces,  but  we  all  know  what  his  judgment  would  be 
worth.  In  drawing-room  circles,  and  for  the  immediate 
hour,  this  ingenious  comparison  was  as  damaging  as  the 
showing  up  of  Merman's  mistakes  and  the  mere  smatter- 
ing of  linguistic  and  historical  knowledge  which  he  had 
presumed  to  be  a  sufficient  basis  for  theorizing;  but  the 
more  learned  cited  his  blunders  aside  to  each  other  and 
laughed  the  laugh  of  the  initiated.  In  fact,  Merman's 
was  a  remarkable  case  of  sudden  notoriety.  In  London 
drums  and  clubs  he  was  spoken  of  abundantly  as  one  who 
had  written  ridiculously  about  the  Magicodumbras  and 
Zuzumotzis:  the  leaders  of  conversation,  whofher  Chris- 
3 


34  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

tians,  Jews,  infidels,  or  of  any  other  confession  except  the 
confession  of  ignorance,  pronouncing  him  shallow  and 
indiscreet  if  not  presumptuous  and  absurd.  He  was  heard 
of  at  Warsaw,  and  even  Paris  took  knawledge  of  him.  M. 
Cachalot  had  not  read  either  Grampus  or  Merman,  but  he 
heard  of  their  dispute  in  time  to  insert  a  paragraph  upon 
it  in  his  brilliant  work,  V orient  an  point  de  vue  actuel,  in 
which  he  was  dispassionate  enough  to  speak  of  Grampus 
as  possessing  a  coup  d'ceil  presque  frangais  in  matters  of 
historical  interpretation,  and  of  Merman  as  nevertheless 
an  objector  qui  merit e  d'etre  connu.  M.  Porpesse,  also, 
availing  himself  of  M.  Cachalot's  knowledge,  reproduced 
it  in  an  article  with  certain  additions,  which  it  is  only  fair 
to  distinguish  as  his  own,  implying  that  the  vigorous  Eng- 
lish of  Grampus  was  not  always  as  correct  as  a  Frenchman 
could  desire,  while  Merman's  objections  were  more  sophis- 
tical than  solid.  Presently,  indeed,  there  appeared  an  able 
extrait  of  Grampus's  article  in  the  valuable  Rapporteur 
scientifique  et  historigue,  and  Merman's  mistakes  were 
thus  brought  under  the  notice  of  certain  Frenchmen  who 
are  among  the  masters  of  those  who  know  on  oriental  sub- 
jects. In  a  word,  Merman,  though  not  extensively  read, 
was  extensively  read  about. 

Meanwhile,  how  did  he  like  it?  Perhaps  nobody,  except 
his  wife,  for  a  moment  reflected  on  that.  An  amused 
society  considered  that  he  was  severely  punished,  but  did 
not  take  the  trouble  to  imagine  his  sensations;  indeed  this 
would  have  been  a  difficulty  for  persons  less  sensitive  and 
excitable  than  Merman  himself.  Perhaps  that  popular 
comparison  of  the  Walrus  had  truth  enough  to  bite  and 
blister  on  thorough  application,  even  if  exultant  ignorance 
had  not  applauded  it.  But  it  is  well  known  that  the  wal- 
rus, though  not  in  the  least  a  malignant  animal,  if  allowed 
to  display  its  remarkably  plain  person  and  blundering 
performances  at  ease  in  any  element  it  chooses,  becomes 
desperately  savage  and  musters  alarming  auxiliaries  when 
attacked  or  hurt.  In  this  characteristic,  at  least,  Merman 
resembled  the  walrus.  And  now  he  concentrated  himself 
with  a  vengeance.  That  his  counter-theory  was  funda- 
mentally the  right  one  he  had  a  genuine  conviction,  what- 
ever collateral  mistakes  he  might  have  committed;  and  his 
bread  would  not  cease  to  be  bitter  to  him  until  he  had 
convinced  his  contemporaries  that  Grampus  had  used 
his  minute  learning  as  a  dust-cloud  to  hide  sophistical 
evasions — that,  in  fact,  minute  learning  was  an  obstacle  to 


HOW    WE    ENCOURAGE    RESEARCH.  35 

clear-sighted  judgment,  more  especially  with  regard  to  the 
Magicoaumbrae  and  Zuzumotzis,  and  that  the  best  prepara- 
tion in  this  matter  was  a  wide  survey  of  history,  and  a 
diversified  observation  of  men.  Still,  Merman  was  resolved 
to  muster  :ill  the  learning  within  his  reach,  and  he  wandered 
day  and  night  through  many  wildernesses  of  German  print, 
lie  t  ried  c.oinperidious  methods  of  learning  oriental  tongues, 
j'nd,  so  to  speak,  getting  at  the  marrow  of  languages  inde- 
pendently of  the  bones,  for  the  chance  of  finding  details 
i.o  corroborate  his  own  views,  or  possibly  even  to  detect 
<J  ram  pus  in  some  oversight  or  textual  tampering.  All 
other  work  was  neglected:  rare  clients  were  sent  away  and 
amazed  editors  found  this  maniac  indifferent  to  his  chance 
of  getting  book-parcels  from  them.  It  was  many  months 
before  Merman  had  satisfied  himself  that  he  was  strong 
enough  to  face  round  upon  his  adversary.  But  at  last  he 
had  prepared  sixty  condensed  pages  of  eager  argument 
which  seemed  to  him  worthy  to  rank  with  the  best  models 
of  controversial  writing.  He  had  acknowledged  his  mis- 
takes, but  had  re-stated  his  theory  so  as  to  show  that  it 
was  left  intact  in  spite  of  them;  and  he  had  even  found 
cases  in  which  Ziphius,  Microps,  Scrag  Whale  the  explorer, 
and  other  Cetaceans  of  unanswerable  authority,  were 
decidedly  at  issue  with  Grampus.  Especially  a  passage 
cited  by  this  last  from  that  greatest  of  fossils  Megalosaurus 
was  demonstrated  by  Merman  to  be  capable  of  three  dif- 
ferent interpretations,  all  preferable  to  that  chosen  by 
Grampus,  who  took  the  words  in  their  most  literal  sense; 
for,  1°,  the  incomparable  Saurian,  alike  unequaled  in 
close  observation  and  far-glancing  comprehensiveness, 
might  have  meant  those  words  ironically;  2°,  motzis 
was  probably  a  false  reading  for  potzis,  in  which  case  its 
bearing  was  reversed;  and  3  ,  it  is  known  that  in  the  age 
of  the  Saurians  there  were  conceptions  about  the  motzis 
which  entirely  remove  it  from  the  category  of  things 
comprehensible  in  an  age  when  Saurians  run  ridiculously 
small:  all  which  views  were  godfathered  by  names  quite  fit 
to  be  ranked  with  that  of  Grampus.  In  fine,  Merman 
wound  up  his  rejoinder  by  sincerely  thanking  the  eminent 
adversary  without  whose  fierce  assault  he  might  not  have 
undertaken  a  revision  in  the  course  of  which  he  had  met 
with  unexpected  and  striking  confirmations  of  his  own 
fundamental  views.  Evidently  Merman's  anger  was  at 
white  heat. 

The  rejoinder  being  complete,  all  that  remained  was  to 


36  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

find  a  suitable  medium  for  its  publication.  This  was  not 
so  easy.  Distinguished  mediums  would  not  lend  them- 
selves to  contradictions  of  Grampus,  or  if  they  would, 
Merman's  article  was  too  long  and  too  abstruse,  while  he 
would  not  consent  to  leave  anything  out  of  an  article 
which  had  no  superfluities;  for  all  this  happened  years 
ago  when  the  world  was  at  a  different  stage.  At  last, 
however,  he  got  his  rejoinder  printed,  and  not  on  hard 
terms,  since  the  medium,  in  every  sense  modest,  did  not 
ask  him  to  pay  for  its  insertion. 

But  if  Merman  expected  to  call  out  Grampus  again,  he 
was  mistaken.  Everybody  felt  it  too  absurd  that  Merman 
should  undertake  to  correct  Grampus  in  matters  of  erudi- 
tion, and  an  eminent  man  has  something  else  to  do  than 
to  refute  a  petty  objector  twice  over.  What  was  essential 
had  been  done:  the  public  had  been  enabled  to  form  a 
true  judgment  of  Merman's  incapacity,  the  Magicodumbras 
and  Zuzumotzis  were  but  subsidiary  elements  in  Grampus's 
system,  and  Merman  might  now  be  dealt  with  by  younger 
members  of  the  master's  school.  But  he  had  at  least  the 
satisfaction  of  finding  that  he  had  raised  a  discussion 
which  would  not  be  let  die.  The  followers  of  Grampus 
took  it  up  with  an  ardor  and  industry  of  research  worthy 
of  their  exemplar.  Butzkopf  made  it  the  subject  of  an 
elaborate  Einleitung  to  his  important  work,  Die  Bcdeutung 
des  JEgyptischen  Labyrinthes;  and  Dagong,  in  a  remark- 
able address  which  he  delivered  to  a  learned  society  in 
Central  Europe,  introduced  Merman's  theory  with  so 
much  power  of  sarcasm  that  it  became  a  theme  of  more  or 
less  derisive  allusion  to  men  of  many  tongues.  Merman 
with  his  Magicodumbras  and  Zuzumotzis  was  on  the  way 
to  become  a  proverb,  being  used  illustratively  by  many 
able  journalists  who  took  those  names  of  questionable 
things  to  be  Merman's  own  invention,  "than  which/'  said 
one  of  the  graver  guides,  "  we  can  recall  few  more  melan- 
choly examples  of  speculative  aberration."  Naturally 
the  subject  passed  into  popular  literature,  and  figured 
very  commonly  in  advertised  programmes!  The  fluent 
Loligo,  the  formidable  Shark,  and  a  younger  member  of 
his  remarkable  family  known  as  S.  Oatulus,  made  a  special 
reputation  by  their  numerous  articles,  eloquent,  lively,  or 
abusive,  all  on  the  same  theme,  under  titles  ingeniously 
varied,  alliterative,  sonorous,  or  boldly  fanciful;  such  as, 
"Moments  with  Mr.  Merman,"  "Mr.  Merman  and  the 
Magicodumbras,"  "Greenland  Grampus  and  Proteus  Mer- 


HOW    WE    KN<  ()l   RAGE    RESEARCH.  37 

man,"  "  Grampian  Heights  and  their  Climbers,  or  the 
New  Excelsior."  They  tossed  him  on  short  sentences; 
they  .swathed  him  in  paragraphs  of  winding  imagery;  they 
found  him  at  once  a  mere  plagiarist  and  a  theorizer  of 
um-xampled  perversity,  ridiculously  wrong  about potzis  and 
ignorant  of  Pali:  they  hinted,  indeed,  at  certain  things 
which  to  their  knowledge  he  had  silently  brooded  over  in 
his  boyhood,  and  seemed  tolerably  well  assured  that  this 
preposterous  attempt  to  gainsay  an  incomparable  Cetacean 
of  world-wide  fame  had  its  origin  in  a  peculiar  mixture  of 
bitterness  and  eccentricity  which,  rightly  estimated  and 
seen  in  its  definite  proportions,  would  furnish  the  best  key 
to  his  argumentation.  All  alike  were  sorry  for  Merman's 
lack  of  sound  learning,  but  how  could  their  readers  be 
sorry?  Sound  learning  would  not  have  been  amusing;  and 
ifi  it  \vas.  Merman  was  made  to  furnish  these  readers  with 
amusement  at  no  expense  of  trouble  on  their  part.  Even 
burlesque  writers  looked  into  his  book  to  see  where  it  could 
be  made  use  of,  and  those  who  did  not  know  him  were 
desirous  of  meeting  him  at  dinner  as  one  likely  to  feed 
their  comic  vein. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  made  a  serious  figure  in  sermons 
under  the  name  of  "  Some  "or  "  Others  "who  had  attempted 
presumptuously  to  scale  eminences  too  high  and  arduous 
for  human  ability,  and  had  given  an  example  of  ignomin- 
ious failure  edifying  to  the  humble  Christian. 

All  this  might  be  very  advantageous  for  able  persons 
whose  superfluous  fund  of  expression  needed  a  paying 
in  vestment,  but  the  effect  on  Merman  himself  was  unhap- 
pily not  so  transient  as  the  busy  writing  and  speaking  of 
which  he  had  become  the  occasion.  His  certainty  that  he 
\vas  right  naturally  got  stronger  in  proportion  as  the  spirit 
of  resistance  was  stimulated.  The  scorn  and  unfairness 
with  which  he  felt  himself  to  have  been  treated  by  those 
really  competent  to  appreciate  his  ideas  had  galled  him  and 
made  a  chronic  sore;  and  the  exultant  chorus  of  the  incom- 
petent seemed  a  pouring  of  vinegar  on  his  wound.  His 
brain  became  a  registry  of  the  foolish  and  ignorant  objec- 
tions made  against  him,  and  of  continually  amplified 
answers  to  these  objections.  Unable  to  get  his  answers 
printed,  he  had  recourse  to  that  more  primitive  mode  of 
publication,  oral  transmission  or  button-holding,  now  gen- 
erally regarded  as  a  troublesome  survival,  and  the  once 
pleasant,  flexible  Merman  was  on  the  way  to  be  shunned 
as  a  bore.  His  interest  in  new  acquaintances  turned 


38  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

chiefly  on  the  possibility  that  they  would  care  about  the 
Magicodumbras  and  Zuzumotzis;  that  they  would  listen  to 
his  complaints  and  exposures  of  unfairness,  and  not  only 
accept  copies  of  what  he  had  written  on  the  subject,  but 
send  him  appreciative  letters  in  acknowledgment.  Re- 
peated disappointment  of  such  hopes  tended  to  embitter 
him,  and  not  the  less  because  after  a  while  the  fashion  of 
mentioning  him  died  out,  allusions  to  his  theory  were  less 
understood,  and  people  could  only  pretend  to  remember 
it.  And  all  the  while  Merman  was  perfectly  sure  that  his 
very  opponents  who  had  knowledge  enough  to  be  capable 
judges  were  aware  that  his  book,  whatever  errors  of  state- 
ment they  might  detect  in  it,  had  served  as  a  sort  of 
divining-rod,  pointing  out  hidden  sources  of  historical 
interpretation;  nay,  his  jealous  examination  discerned  in 
a  new  work  by  Grampus  himself  a  certain  shifting  of 
ground  which — so  poor  Merman  declared — was  the  sign  of 
an  intention  gradually  to  appropriate  the  views  of  the  man 
he  had  attempted  to  brand  as  an  ignorant  impostor. 

And  Julia?  And  the  housekeeping?  —  the  rent,  food 
and  clothing,  which  controversy  can  hardly  supply  unless 
it  be  of  the  kind  that  serves  as  a  recommendation  to 
certain  posts.  Controversial  pamphlets  have  been  known 
to  earn  large  plums;  but  nothing  of  the  sort  could  be 
expected  from  unpractical  heresies  about  the  Magicodum- 
bras and  Zuzumotzis.  Painfully  the  contrary.  Merman's 
reputation  as  a  sober  thinker,  a  safe  writer,  a  sound  lawyer, 
was  irretrievably  injured:  the  distractions  of  controversy 
had  caused  him  to  neglect  useful  editorial  connections, 
and  indeed  his  dwindling  care  for  miscellaneous  subjects 
made  his  contributions  too  dull  to  be  desirable.  Even  if 
he  could  now  have  given  a  new  turn  to  his  concentration, 
and  applied  his  talents  so  as  to  be  ready  to  show  himself 
an  exceptionally  qualified  lawyer,  he  would  only  have  been 
like  an  architect  in  competition,  too  late  with  his  superior 
plans;  he  would  not  have  had  an  opportunity  of  showing 
his  qualification.  He  was  thrown  out  of  the  course.  The 
small  capital  which  had  filled  up  deficiencies  of  income  was 
almost  exhausted,  and  Julia,  in  the  effort  to  make  supplies 
equal  to  wants,  had  to  use  much  ingenuity  in  diminishing 
the  wants.  The  brave  and  affectionate  woman  whose 
small  outline,  so  unimpressive  against  an  illuminated 
background,  held  within  it  a  good  share  of  feminine  hero- 
ism, did  her  best  to  keep  up  the  charm  of  home  and  soothe 
her  husband's  excitement;  parting  with  the  best  jewel 


HOW    UK    KXCOl  HA(iK    RESEARCH.  39 

among  her  wedding  presents  in  order  to  pay  rent,  without 
ever  hinting  to  her  husband  that  this  sad  result  had  come 
of  his  undertaking  to  convince  people  who  only  laughed  at 
him.  She  was  a  resigned  little  creature,  and  reflected  that 
some  husbands  took  to  drinking  and  others  to  forgery: 
hers  had  only  taken  to  the  Magicodumbras  and  Zuzumot- 
zis,  and  was  not  unkind  —  only  a  little  more  indifferent  to 
her  and  her  two  children  than  she  had  ever  expected  he 
would  be,  his  mind  being  eaten  up  with  "  subjects,"  and 
constantly  a  little  angry,  not  with  her,  but  with  everybody 
else,  especially  those  who  were  celebrated. 

This  was  the  sad  truth.  Merman  felt  himself  ill-used 
by  rlie  world,  and  thought  very  much  worse  of  the  world 
in  consequence.  The  gall  of  his  adversaries'  ink  had  been 
sucked  into  his  system  and  ran  in  his  blood.  He  was  still 
in  the  prime  of  life,  but  his  mind  was  aged  by  that  eager 
monotonous  construction  which  comes  of  feverish  excite- 
ment on  a  single  topic  and  uses  up  the  intellectual  strength. 

Merman  had  never  been  a  rich  man,  but  he  was  now 
conspicuously  poor,  and  in  need  of  the  friends  who  had 
power  or  interest  which  he  believed  they  could  exert  on 
his  behalf.  Their  omitting  or  declining  to  give  this  help 
ctmld  not  seem  to  him  so  clearly  as  to  them  an  inevitable 
consequence  of  his  having  become  impracticable,  or  at 
least  of  his  passing  for  a  man  whose  views  were  not  likely 
to  be  safe  and  sober.  Each  friend  in  turn  offended  him, 
though  unwillingly,  and  was  suspected  of  wishing  to  shake 
him  off.  It  was  not  altogether  so;  but  poor  Merman's 
society  had  undeniably  ceased  to  be  attractive,  and  it  was 
difficult  to  help  him.  At  last  the  pressure  of  want  urged 
him  to  try  for  a  post  far  beneath  his  earlier  prospects,  and 
he  gained  it.  He  holds  it  still,  for  he  has  no  vices,  and  his 
domestic  life  has  kept  up  a  sweetening  current  of  motive 
around  and  within  him.  Nevertheless,  the  bitter  flavor 
mingling  itself  with  all  topics,  the  premature  weariness 
and  withering  are  irrevocably  there.  It  is  as  if  he  had 
gone  through  a  disease  which  alters  what  we  call  the  con- 
stitution. He  has  long  ceased  to  talk  eagerly  of  the  ideas 
which  possess  him,  or  to  attempt  making  proselytes.  The 
dial  has  moved  onward,  and  he  himself  sees  many  of  his 
former  guesses  in  a  new  light.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has 
seen  what  he  foreboded,  that  the  main  idea  which  was  at 
the  root  of  his  too  rash  theorizing  has  been  adopted  by 
Grampus  and  received  with  general  respect,  no  reference 


40     .  THEOPHEASTUS    SUCH. 

being  heard  to  the  ridiculous  figure  this  important  concep- 
tion made  when  ushered  in  by  the  incompetent  "Others." 
Now  and  then,  on  rare  occasions,  when  a  sympathetic 
tete-a-tete  has  restored  some  of  his  old  expansiveness,  he 
will  tell  a  companion  in  a  railway  carriage,  or  other  place 
of  meeting  favorable  to  autobiographical  confidences,  what 
has  been  the  course  of  things  in  his  particular  case,  as  an 
example  of  the  justice  to,  be  expected  of  the  world.  The 
companion  usually  allows  for  the  bitterness  of  a  disap- 
pointed man,  and  is  secretly  disinclined  to  believe  that 
Grampus  was  to  blame. 


A    MAN    bl'KI'ttlSED   AT   HIS   ORIGINALITY.  41 


IV. 

A  MAN  SURPRISED   AT  HIS   ORIGINALITY. 

AMONG  the  many  acute  sayings  of  La  Rochefoucauld, 
there  is  hardly  one  more  acute  than  this:  "  La  plusgrande 
ambition  n'en  a  pas  la  moindre  apparence  lorsqu'elle  se 
rencontre  dans  une  impossibility  absolue  d'arriver  ou  elle 
aspire."  Some  of  us  might  do  well  to  use  this  hint  in  our 
treatment  of  acquaintances  and  friends  from  whom  we  are 
expecting  gratitude  because  we  are  so  very  kind  in  think- 
ing of  them,  inviting  them,  and  even  listening  to  what 
they  say  —  considering  how  insignificant  they  must  feel 
themselves  to  be.  We  are  often  fallaciously  confident  in 
supposing  that  our  friend's  state  of  mind  is  appropriate  to 
pur  moderate  estimate  of  his  importance:  almost  as  if  we 
imagined  the  humble  mollusk  (so  useful  as  an  illustration) 
to  have  a  sense  of  his  own  exceeding  softness  and  low  place 
in  the  scale  of  being.  Your  mollusk,  on  the  contrary,  is 
inwardly  objecting  to  every  other  grade  of  solid  rather  than 
to  himself.  Accustomed  to  observe  what  we  think  an 
unwarrantable  conceit  exhibiting  itself  in  ridiculous  preten- 
sions and  forwardness  to  play  the  lion's  part,  in  obvious 
self-complacency  and  loud  peremptoriness,  we  are  not  on  the 
alert  to  detect  the  egoistic  claims  of  a  more  exorbitant 
kind  often  hidden  under  an  apparent  neutrality  or  an 
acquiescence  in  being  put  out  of  the  question. 

Thoughts  of  this  kind  occurred  to  me  yesterday  when  I 
saw  the  name  of  Lentulus  in  the  obituary.  The  majority 
of  his  acquaintances,  I  imagine,  have  always  thought  of 
him  as  a  man  justly  unpretending  and  as  nobody's  rival; 
but  some  of  them  have  perhaps  been  struck  with  surprise 
at  his  reserve  in  praising  the  works  of  his  contemporaries, 
and  have  now  and  then  felt  themselves  in  need  of  a  key  to 
his  remarks  on  men  of  celebrity  in  various  departments. 
He  was  a  man  of  fair  position,  deriving  his  income  from  a 
business  in  which  he  did  nothing,  at  leisure  to  frequent 
clubs  and  at  ease  in  giving  dinners;  weP-looking,  polite, 
and  generally  acceptable  in  society  as  a  part  of  what  we  may 
call  its  bread-crumb — the  neutral  basis  needful  for  the  plums 
and  spice.  Why,  then,  did  he  speak  of  the  modern  Maro 


42  THEOPHIIASTUS    SUCH. 

or  the  modern  Flaccus  with  a  peculiarity  in  his  tone  of 
assent  to  other  people's  praise  which  might  almost  have  led 
you  to  suppose  that  the  eminent  poet  had  borrowed  money 
of  him  and  showed  an  indisposition  to  repay?  He  had  no 
criticism  to  offer,  no  sign  of  objection  more  specific  than  a 
slight  cough,  a  scarcely  perceptible  pause  before  assenting, 
and  an  air  of  self-control  in  his  utterance — as  if  certain 
considerations  had  determined  him  not  to  inform  against 
the  so-called  poet,  who  to  his  knowledge  was  a  mere  versi- 
fier. If  you  had  questioned  him  closely,  he  would  perhaps 
have  confessed  that  he  did  think  something  better  might 
be  done  in  the  way  of  Eclogues  and  Georgics,  or  of  Odes  and 
Epodes,  and  that  to  his  mind  poetry  was  something  very 
different  from  what  had  hitherto  been  known  under  that 
name. 

For  my  own  part,  being  of  a  superstitious  nature,  given 
readily  to  imagine  alarming  causes,  I  immediately,  on  first 

getting  these  mystic  hints  from  Lentulus,  concluded  that 
e  held  a  number  of  entirely  original  poems,  or  at  the 
very  least  a  revolutionary  treatise  on  poetics,  in  that  mel- 
ancholy manuscript  state  to  which  works  excelling  all  that 
is  ever  printed  are  necessarily  condemned;  and  I  was  long 
timid  in  speaking  of  the  poets  when  he  was  present.  For 
what  might  not  Lentulus  have  done,  or  be  profoundly 
aware  of,  that  would  make  my  ignorant  impressions  ridic- 
ulous? One  cannot  well  be  sure  of  the  negative  in  such  a 
case,  except  through  certain  positives  that  bear  witness  to 
it;  and  those  witnesses  are  not  always  to  be  got  hold  of. 
But  time  wearing  on,  I  perceived  that  the  attitude  of 
Lentulus  toward  the  philosophers  was  essentially  the  same 
as  his  attitude  toward  the  poets;  nay,  there  was  something 
so  much  more  decided  in  his  mode  of  closing  his  mouth 
after  brief  speech  on  the  former,  there  was  such  an  air  of 
rapt  consciousness  in, his  private  hints  as  to  his  conviction 
that  all  thinking  hitherto  had  been  an  elaborate  mistake, 
and  as  to  his  own  power  of  conceiving  a  sound  basis  for  a 
lasting  superstructure,  that  I  began  to  believe  less  in  the 
poetical  stores,  and  to  infer  that  the  line  of  Lentulus  lay 
rather  in  the  rational  criticism  of  our  beliefs  and  in  sys- 
tematic construction.  In  this  case  I  did  not  figure  to 
myself  the  existence  of  formidable  manuscripts  ready  for 
the  press;  for  great  thinkers  are  known  to  carry  their  the- 
ories growing  within  their  minds  long  before  committing 
them  to  paper,  and  the  ideas  which  made  a  new  passion 
for  them  when  their  locks  were  jet  or  auburn,  remain  per- 


A    MAN    SURPRISED   AT   HIS   ORIGINALITY.  43 

ilously  unwritten,  an  inwardly  developing  condition  of 
their  successive  selves,  until  the  locks  are  gray  or  scanty. 
I  only  meditated  improvingly  on  the  way  in  which  a  man 
of  exceptional  faculties,  and  even  carrying  within  him 
sonic  of  that  fierce  refiner's  fire  which  is  to  purge  away  the 
droea  of  human  error,  may  move  about  in  society  totally 
unrecognized,  regarded  as  a  person  whose  opinion  is  super- 
fluous, and  only  rising  into  a  power  in  emergencies  of 
threatened  black-balling.  Imagine  a  Descartes  or  a  Locke 
being  recognized  for  nothing  more  than  a  good  fellow  and 
a  perfect  gentleman — what  a  painful  view  does  such  a  pict- 
ure suggest  of  impenetrable  dullness  in  the  society  around 
them! 

I  would  at  all  times  rather  be  reduced  to  a  cheaper  esti- 
mate of  a  particular  person,  if  by  that  means  I  can  get  a 
more  cheerful  view  of  my  fellow-men  generally;  and  I 
confess  that  in  a  certain  curiosity  which  led  me  to  culti- 
vate Lentulus's  acquaintance,  my  hope  leaned  to  the 
discovery  that  he  was  a  less  remarkable  man  than  he 
had  seemed  to  imply.  It  would  have  been  a  grief  to  dis- 
cover that  he  was  bitter  or  malicious,  but  by  finding  him  to 
be  neither  a  mighty  poet,  nor  a  revolutionary  poetical 
critic,  nor  an  epoch-making  philosopher,  my  admiration 
for  the  poets  and  thinkers  whom  he  rated  so  low  would 
recover  all  its  buoyancy,  and  I  should  not  be  left  to  trust 
to  that  very  suspicious  sort  of  merit  which  constitutes  an 
exception  in  the  history  of  mankind,  and  recommends  itself 
as  the  total  abolitionist  of  all  previous  claims  on  our  con- 
fidence. You  are  not  greatly  surprised  at  the  infirm  logic 
of  the  coachman  who  would  persuade  you  to  engage  him 
by  insisting  that  any  other  would  be  sure  to  rob  you  in  the 
matter  of  hay  and  corn,  thus  demanding  a  difficult  belief 
in  him  as  the  sole  exception  from  the  frailties  of  his  call- 
ing; but  it  is  rather  astonishing  that  the  wholesale  decriers 
of  mankind  and  its  performances  should  be  even  more 
unwary  in  their  reasoning  than  the  coachman,  since  each 
of  them  not  merely  confides  in  your  regarding  himself  as 
an  exception,  but  overlooks  the  almost  certain  fact  that 
you  are  wondering  whether  he  inwardly  excepts  you. 
Now,  conscious  of  entertaining  some  common  opinions 
which  seemed  to  fall  under  the  mildly  intimated  but 
sweeping  ban  of  Lentulus,  my  self-complacency  was  a 
little  concerned. 

Hence  I  deliberately  attempted  to  draw  out  Lentulus  in 
private  dialogue,  for  it  is  the  reverse  of  injury  to  a  man 


44  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

to  offer  him  that  hearing  which  he  seems  to  have  found 
nowhere  else.  And  for  whatever  purposes  silence  may  be 
equal  to  gold,  it  cannot  be  safely  taken  as  an  indication  of 
specific  ideas.  I  sought  to  know  why  Lentulus  was  more 
than  indifferent  to  the  poets,  and  what  was  that  new 
poetry  which  he  had  either  written  or,  as  to  its  principles, 
distinctly  conceived.  But  I  presently  found  that  he  knew 
very  little  of  any  particular  poet,  and  had  a  general  notion 
of  poetry  as  the  use  of  artificial  language  to  express  unreal 
sentiments:  he  instanced  "The  Giaour,"  "Lalla  Rookh," 
"The  Pleasures  of  Hope,"  and  "  Ruin  seize  thee,  ruthless 
King;"  adding,  "and  plenty  more."  On  my  observing 
that  he  probably  preferred  a  larger,  simpler  style,  he 
emphatically  assented.  "Have  you  not,"  said  I,  "writ- 
ten something  of  that  order?"  "No;  but  I  often  compose 
as  I  go  along.  I  see  how  things  might  be  written  as  fine 
as  Ossian,  only  with  true  ideas.  The  world  has  no  notion 
what  poetry  will  be." 

It  was  impossible  to  disprove  this,  and  I  am  always  glad 
to  believe  that  the  poverty  of  our  imagination  is  no  meas- 
ure of  the  world's  resources  Our  posterity  will  no  doubt 
get  fuel  in  ways  that  we  are  unable  to  devise  for  them. 
But  what  this  conversation  persuaded  me  of  was,  that  the 
birth  with  which  the  mind  of  Lentulus  was  pregnant  could 
not  be  poetry,  though  I  did  not  question  that  he  composed 
as  he  went  along,  and  that  the  exercise  was  accompanied 
with  a  great  sense  of  power.  This  is  a  frequent  experi- 
ence in  dreams,  and  much  of  our  waking  experience  is  but 
a  dream  in  the  daylight.  Nay,  for  what  I  saw,  the  com- 
positions might  be  fairly  classed  as  Ossianic.  But  I  was 
satisfied  that  Lentulus  could  not  disturb  my  grateful  admi- 
ration for  the  poets  of  all  ages  by  eclipsing  them,  or  by 
putting  them  under  a  new  electric  light  of  criticism. 

Still,  he  had  himself  thrown  the  chief  emphasis  of  his 
protest  and  his  consciousness  of  corrective  illumination 
on  the  philosophic  thinking  of  our  race;  and  his  tone  in 
assuring  me  that  everything  which  had  been  done  in  that 
way  was  wrong — that  Plato,  Robert  Owen,  and  Dr.  Tuffle, 
who  wrote  in  the  "  Regulator,"  were  all  equally  mistaken — 
gave  my  superstitious  nature  a  thrill  of  anxiety.  After 
what  had  passed  about  the  poets,  it  did  not  seem  likely 
that  Lentulus  had  all  systems  by  heart;  but  who  could  say 
he  had  not  seized  that  thread  which  may  somewhere  hang 
out  loosely  from  the  web  of  things  and  be  the  clue  of 
unravelment?  We  need  not  go  far  to  learn  that  a  prophet 


A  MAN   SURPRISED   AT  HIS   ORIGIXALITY.  45 

is  not  made  by  erudition.  Lentulus  at  least  had  not  the 
bias  of  a  school;  and  if  it  turned  out  that  lie  was  in  agree- 
ment with  any  celebrated  thinker,  ancient  or  modern,  the 
agreement  would  have  the  value  of  an  undesigned  coinci- 
dence not  due  to  forgotten  reading.  It  was  therefore  with 
renewed  curiosity  that  I  engaged  him  on  this  large  sub- 
ject— the  universal  erroneousness  of  thinking  up  to  the 
period  when  Lentulus  began  that  process.  And  here  I 
found  him  more  copious  than  on  the  theme  of  poetry. 
lie  admitted  that  he  did  contemplate  writing  down  his 
thoughts,  but  his  difficulty  was  their  abundance.  Appar- 
ently he  was  like  the  woodcutter  entering  the  thick  forest 
and  saying,  "Where  shall  I  begin?"  The  same  obstacle 
appeared  in  a  minor  degree  to  cling  about  his  verbal  expo- 
sition, and  accounted  perhaps  for  his  rather  helter-skelter 
choice  of  remarks  bearing  on  the  number  of  unaddressed 
letters  sent  to  the  post-office;  on  what  logic  really  is,  as 
tending  to  support  the  buoyancy  of  human  mediums  and 
mahogany  tables;  on  the  probability  of  all  miracles  under 
all  religions  when  explained  by  hidden  laws,  and  my 
unreasonableness  in  supposing  that  their  profuse  occur- 
rence at  half  a  guinea  an  hour  in  recent  times  was  any- 
thing more  than  a  coincidence;  on  the  hap-hazard  way  in 
which  marriages  are  determined — showing  the  baselessness 
of  social  and  moral  schemes;  and  on  his  expectation  that 
he  should  offend  the  scientific  world  when  he  told  them 
what  he  thought  of  electricity  as  an  agent. 

Xo  man's  appearance  could  be  graver  or  more  gentle- 
man-like than  that  of  Lentulus  as  we  walked  along  the 
Mall  while  he  delivered  these  observations,  understood  by 
himself  to  have  a  regenerative  bearing  on  human  society. 
His  wristbands  and  black  gloves,  his  hat  and  nicely  clipped 
hair,  his  laudable  moderation  in  beard,  and  his  evident 
discrimination  in  choosing  his  tailor,  all  seemed  to  excuse 
the  prevalent  estimate  of  him  as  a  man  untainted  with 
heterodoxy,  and  likely  to  be  so  unencumbered  with 
opinions  that  he  would  always  be  useful  as  an  assenting 
and  admiring  listener.  Men  of  science  seeing  him  at  their 
lectures  doubtless  flattered  themselves  that  he  came  to 
learn  from  them;  the  philosophic  ornaments  of  our  time, 
expounding  some  of  their  luminous  ideas  in  the  social 
circle,  took  the  meditative  gaze  of  Lentulus  for  one  of  sur- 
prise not  unmixed  with  a  just  reverence  at  such  close 
reasoning  toward  so  novel  a  conclusion;  and  those  who  are 
called  men  of  the  world  considered  him  a  good  fellow  who 


46  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

might  be  asked  to  vote  for  a  friend  of  their  own  and  would 
have  no  troublesome  notions  to  make  him  unaccommodat- 
ing. You  perceive  how  very  much  they  were  all  mistaken, 
except  in  qualifying  him  as  a  good  fellow. 

This  Lentulus  certainly  was,  in  the  sense  of  being  free 
from  envy,  hatred,  and  malice;  and  such  freedom  was  all 
the  more  remarkable  an  indication  of  native  benignity, 
because  of  his  gaseous,  inimitably  expansive  conceit.  Yes, 
conceit;  for  that  his  enormous  and  contentedly  ignorant 
confidence  in  his  own  rambling  thoughts  was  usually  clad 
in  a  decent  silence,  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be  less 
strictly  called  by  the  name  directly  implying  a  complacent 
self-estimate  unwarranted  by  performance.  Nay,  the  total 
privacy  in  which  he  enjoyed  his  consciousness  of  inspira- 
tion was  the  very  condition  of  its  undisturbed  placid 
nourishment  and  gigantic  growth.  Your  audibly  arrogant 
man  exposes  himself  to  tests:  in  attempting  to  make  an 
impression  on  others  he  may  possibly  (not  always)  be  made 
to  feel  his  own  lack  of  definiteness;  and  the  demand  for 
definiteness  is  to  all  of  us  a  needful  check  on  vague  depreci- 
ation of  what  others  do,  and  vague  ecstatic  trust  in  our 
own  superior  ability.  But  Lentulus  was  at  once  so  un re- 
ceptive, and  so  little  gifted  with  the  power  of  displaying 
his  miscellaneous  deficiency  of  information,  that  there  was 
really  nothing  to  hinder  his  astonishment  at  the  spontane- 
ous crop  of  ideas  which  his  mind  secretly  yielded.  If  it 
occurred  to  him  that  there  were  more  meanings  than  one 
for  the  word  "  motive/'  since  it  sometimes  meant  the  end 
aimed  at  and  sometimes  the  feeling  that  prompted  the 
aiming,  and  that  the  word  "  cause"  was  also  of  changeable 
import,  he  was  naturally  struck  with  the  truth  of  his  own 
perception,  and  was  convinced  that  if  this  vein  were  well 
followed  out  much  might  be  made  of  it.  Men  were  evi- 
dently in  the  wrong  about  cause  and  effect,  else  why  was 
society  in  the  confused  state  we  behold?  And  as  to  motive, 
Lentulus  felt  that  when  he  came  to  write  down  his  views 
he  should  look  deeply  into  this  kind  of  subject  and  show 
up  thereby  the  anomalies  of  our  social  institutions;  mean- 
while the  various  aspects  of  "  motive"  and  "  cause  "  flitted 
about  among  the  motley  crowd  of  ideas  which  he  regarded 
as  original,  and  pregnant  with  reformative  efficacy.  For 
his  unaffected  goodwill  made  him  regard  all  his  insight  as 
only  valuable  because  it  tended  toward  reform. 

The  respectable  man  had  got  into  his  illusory  maze  of 
discoveries  by  letting  go  that  clue  of  conformity  in  his 


A   MAN   SURPRISED   AT  HIS   ORIGINALITY.  4? 

thinking  which  he  had  kept  fast  hold  of  in  his  tailoring 
and  irunners.  He  regarded  heterodoxy  as  a  power  in 
itself,  and  took  his  inacquaintance  with  doctrines  for  a 
creative  dissidence.  But  his  epitaph  needs  not  to  be  a 
melancholy  one.  His  benevolent  disposition  was  more 
effective  for  good  than  his  silent  presumption  for  harm. 
He  might  have  been  mischievous  but  for  the  lack  of  words: 
instead  of  being  astonished  at  his  inspirations  in  private, 
he  might  have  clad  his  addled  originalities,  disjointed  com- 
monplaces, blind  denials,  and  balloon-like  conclusions,  in 
that  mighty  sort  of  language  which  would  have  made 
a  new  koran  for  a  knot  of  followers.  I  mean  no  disre- 
spect to  the  ancient  koran,  but  one  would  not  desire  the 
roc  to  lay  more  eggs  and  give  us  a  whole  wing-flapping 
brood  to  soar  and  make  twilight. 

Peace  be  with  Lentulus,  for  he  has  left  us  in  peace. 
Blessed  is  the  man  who,  having  nothing  to  say,  abstains 
from  giving  us  wordy  evidence  of  the  fact — from  calling 
on  us  to  look  through  a  heap  of  millet-seed  in  order  to  be 
sure  that  there  is  no  pearl  in  it. 


48  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 


V. 

A  TOO  DEFERENTIAL  MAN. 

A  LITTLE  unpremeditated  insincerity  must  be  indulged 
under  the  stress  of  social  intercourse.  The  talk  even  of 
an  honest  man  must  often  represent  merely  his  wish  to  be 
inoffensive  or  agreeable  rather  than  his  genuine  opinion  or 
feeling  on  the  matter  in  hand.  His  thought,  if  uttered, 
might  be  wounding;  or  he  has  not  the  ability  to  utter  it 
with  exactness  and  snatches  at  a  loose  paraphrase;  or  he 
has  really  no  genuine  thought  on  the  question  and  is  driven 
to  fill  up  the  vacancy  by  borrowing  the  remarks  in  vogue. 
These  are  the  winds  and  currents  we  have  all  to  steer 
amongst,  and  they  are  often  too  strong  for  our  truthful- 
ness or  our  wit.  Let  us  not  bear  too  hardly  on  each  other 
for  this  common  incidental  frailty,  or  think  that  we  rise 
superior  to  it  by  dropping  all  considerateness  and  deference. 

But  there  are  studious,  deliberate  forms  of  insincerity, 
which  it  is  fair  to  be  impatient  with:  Hinze's,  for  example. 
From  his  name  you  might  suppose  him  to  be  German:  in 
fact,  his  family  is  Alsatian,  but  has  been  settled  in  Eng- 
land for  more  than  one  generation.  He  is  the  superla- 
tively deferential  man,  and  walks  about  with  murmured 
wonder  at  the  wisdom  and  discernment  of  everybody  who 
talks  to  him.  He  cultivates  the  low-toned  tete-u-tfte, 
keeping  his  hat  carefully  in  his  hand  and  often  stroking 
it,  while  he  smiles  with  downcast  eyes,  as  if  to  relieve  his 
feelings  under  the  pressure  of  the  remarkable  conversation 
which  it  is  his  honor  to  enjoy  at  the  present  moment.  I 
confess  to  some  rage  on  hearing  him  yesterday  talking  to 
Felicia,  who  is  certainly  a  clever  woman,  and,  without  any 
unusual  desire  to  show  her  cleverness,  occasionally  says 
something  of  her  own  or  makes  an  allusion  which  is  not 
quite  common.  Still,  it  must  happen  to  her  as  to  every 
one  else  to  speak  of  many  subjects  on  which  the  best  things 
were  said  long  ago,  and  in  conversation  with  a  person  who 
has  been  newly  introduced  those  well-worn  themes  natu- 
rally recur  as  a  further  development  of  salutations  and  pre- 
liminary media  of  understanding,  such  as  pipes,  chocolate, 
or  mastic-chewing,  which  serve  to  confirm  the  impression 


A   TOO    DEFKKKM1AL    MAN.  49 

that  our  new  acquaintance  is  on  a  civilized  footing  and  has 
enough  regard  for  formulas  to  save  us  from  shocking  out- 
bur.sts  of  individualism,  to  which  we  are  always  exposed 
with  the  tamest  bear  or  baboon.  Considered  purely  as  a 
matter  of  information,  it  cannot  any  longer  be  important 
for  us  .to  learn  that  a  British  subject  included  in  the  last 
census  holds  Shakespeare  to  be  supreme  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  character;  still,  it  is  as  admissible  for  any  one  to 
make  this  statement  about  himself  as  to  rub  his  hands  and 
tell  you  that  the  air  is  brisk,  if  only  he  will  let  it  fall  as  a 
matter  of  course,  with  a  parenthetic  lightness,  and  not 
.announce  his  adhesion  to  a  commonplace  with  an  emphatic 
insistence,  as  if  it  were  a  proof  of  singular  insight.  We 
mortals  should  chiefly  like  to  talk  to  each  other  out  of 
goodwill  and  fellowship,  not  for  the  sake  of  hearing  reve- 
lations or  being  stimulated  by  witticisms ;  and  I  have 
usually  found  that  it  is  the  rather  dull  person  who  appears 
to  be  disgusted  with  his  contemporaries  because  they  are 
not  always  strikingly  original,  and  to  satisfy  whom  the 
party  at  a  country  house  should  have  included  the  prophet 
Isaiah,  Plato,  Francis  Bacon,  and  Voltaire.  It  is  always 
your  heaviest  bore  who  is  astonished  at  the  tameuess  of 
modern  celebrities:  naturally;  for  a  little  of  his  company 
has  reduced  them  to  a  state  of  flaccid  fatigue.  It  is  right 
and  meet  that  there  should  be  an  abundant  utterance  of 
good  sound  commonplaces.  Part  of  an  agreeable  talker's 
charm  is  that  he  lets  them  fall  continually  with  no 
more  than  their  due  emphasis.  Giving  a  pleasant  voice 
to  what  we  are  all  assured  of,  makes  a  sort  of  wholesome 
:air  for  more  special  and  dubious  remark  to  move  in. 

Hence  it  seemed  to  me  ^far  from  unbecoming  in  Felicia 
that  in  her  first  dialogue"  with  Hinze,  previously  quite  a 
stranger  to  her,  her  observations  were  those  of  an  ordi- 
narily refined  and  well-educated  woman  on  standard  sub- 
jects, and  might  have  been  printed  in  a  manual  of  polite 
topics  and  creditable  opinions.  She  had  no  desire  to 
.astonish  a  man  of  whom  she  had  heard  nothing  particular. 
It  was  all  the  more  exasperating  to  see  and  hear  Hinze's 
reception  of  her  well-bred  conformities.  Felicia's  acquaint- 
ances know  her  as  the  suitable  wife  of  a  distinguished 
man,  a  sensible,  vivacious,  kindly  disposed  woman,  helping 
her  husband  with  graceful  apologies  written  and  spoken, 
and  making  her  receptions  agreeable  to  all  comers.  But 
you  would  have  imagined  that  Hinze  had  been  prepared  by 
general  report  to  regard  this  introduction  to  her  as  an 
4 


50  THEOPHRASTTTS    SUCH, 

opportunity  comparable  to  an  audience  of  the  Delphic 
Sibyl.  When  she  had  delivered  herself  on  the  changes  in 
Italian  travel,  on  the  difficulty  of  reading  Ariosto  in  these 
busy  times,  on  the  want  of  equilibrium  in  French  political 
affairs,  and  on  the  pre-eminence  of  German  music,  he 
would  know  what  to  think.  Felicia  was  evidently  embar- 
rassed by  his  reverent  wonder,  and,  in  dread  lest  she  should 
seem  to  be  playing  the  oracle,  became  somewhat  confused, 
stumbling  on  her  answers  rather  than  choosing  them. 
But  thi,;  made  no  difference  to  Hinze's  rapt  attention  and 
subdued  eagerness  of  inquiry.  He  continued  to  put  large 
questions,  bending  bis  head  slightly  that  his  eyes  might  be 
a  little  lifted  in  awaiting  her  reply. 

"What,  may  I  ask,  is  your  opinion  as  to  the  state  of 
Art'in  England?" 

"Oh,"  said  Felicia,  with  a  light  deprecatory  laugh,  "I 
think  it  suffers  from  two  diseases — bad  taste  in  the  patrons 
and  want  of  inspiration  in  the  artists." 

"That  is  true  indeed,"  said  Hinze,  in  an  undertone  of 
deep  conviction.  "  You  have  put  your  finger  with  strict 
accuracy  on  the  causes  of  decline.  To  a  cultivated  taste 
like  yours  this  must  be  particularly  painful." 

"  I  did  not  say  there  was  actual  decline,"  said  Felicia, 
with  a  touch  of  brusquerie.  "  I  don't  set  myself  up  as  the 
great  personage  whom  nothing  can  please." 

"That  would  be  too  severe  a  misfortune  for  others,"  says 
my  complimentary  ape.  "You  approve,  perhaps,  of 
Kosemary's  '  Babes  in  the  Wood,'  as  something  fresh  and 
naive  in  sculpture?" 

"I  think  it  enchanting." 

"  Does  he  know  that  ?  Or  .will  you  permit  me  tell 
him?" 

"Heaven  forbid!  It  would  be  an  impertinence  in  me 
to  praise  a  work  of  his — to  pronounce  on  its  quality;  and 
that  I  happen  to  like  it  can  be  of  no  consequence  to  him." 

Here  was  an  occasion  for  Hinze  to  smile  down  on  his  hat 
and  stroke  it — Felicia's  ignorance  that  her  praise  was  inesti- 
mable being  peculiarly  noteworthy  to  an  observer  of  man- 
kind. Presently  he  was  quite  sure  that  her  favorite  author 
was  Shakespeare,  and  wished  to  know  what  she  thought 
of  Hamlet's  madness.  When  she  had  quoted  Wilhelm 
Meister  on  this  point,  and  had  afterward  testified  that 
"Lear "was  beyond  adequate  presentation,  that  "Julius 
Caesar  "  was  an  effective  acting  play,  and  that  a  poet  may 
know  a  good  deal  about  human  nature  while  knowing  little 


A  TOO   DEFERENTIAL   MAN.  51 

of  geography,  Hinze  appeared  so  impressed  with  the  pleni- 
tude of  these  revelations  that  lie  recapitulated  tnem, 
weaving  them  together  with  threads  of  compliment — "  As 
you  very  justly  observed;"  and — "  It  is  most  true,  as  you 
say;"  and — "It  were  well  if  others  noted  what  you  have 
remarked." 

Some  listeners  incautious  in  their  epithets  would  have 
called  Ilinze  an  "  ass."  For  my  part  I  would  never  insult 
that  intelligent  and  unpretending  animal  who  no  doubt 
bravs  with  perfect  simplicity  and  substantial  meaning  to 
those  acquainted  with  his  idiom,  and  if  he  feigns  more 
submission  than  he  feels,  has  weighty  reasons  for  doing 
so — I  would  never,  I  say,  insult  that  historic  and  ill-appre- 
ciated animal,  the  ass,  by  giving  his  name  to  a  man  whose 
continuous  pretense  is  so  shallow  in  its  motive,  so  unex- 
cused  by  any  sharp  appetite  as  this  of  Hinze's. 

But  perhaps  you  would  say  that  his  adulatory  manner 
was  originally  adopted  under  strong  promptings  of  self- 
interest,  and  that  his  absurdly  over-acted  deference  to 
persons  from  whom  he  expects  no  patronage  is  the  unre- 
flecting persistence  of  habit — just  as  those  who'live  with 
the  deaf  will  shout  to  everybody  else. 

And  you  might  indeed  imagine  that  in  talking  to  Tul- 
pian,  who  has  considerable  interest  at  his  disposal,  Hinze  had 
a  desired  appointment  in  his  mind.  Tulpian  is  appealed 
to  on  innumerable  subjects,  and  if  he  is  unwilling  to 
express  himself  on  any  one  of  them,  says  so  with  instructive 
copiousness:  he  is  much  listened  to,  and  his  utterances  are 
registered  and  reported  with  more  or  less  exactitude.  But 
I  think  he  has  no  other  listener  who  comports  himself  as 
Hinze  does  —  who,  figuratively  speaking,  carries  about  a 
small  spoon  ready  to  pick  up  any  dusty  crumb  of  opinion 
that  the  eloquent  man  may  have  let  drop.  Tulpian,  with 
reverence  be  it  said,  has  some  rather  absurd  notions,  such 
as  a  mind  of  large  discourse  often  finds  room  for:  they  slip 
about  among  his  higher  conceptions  and  multitudinous 
acquirements  like  disreputable  characters  at  a  national 
celebration  in  some  vast  cathedral,  where  to  the  ardent 
soul  all  is  glorified  by  rainbow  light  and  grand  associa- 
tions: any  vulgar  detective  knows  them  for  what  they  are. 
But  Hinze  is  especially  fervid  in  his  desire  to  hear  Tul- 
pian dilate  on  his  cr»>tv/nets,  and  is  rather  troublesome  to 
bystanders  in  asking  them  whether  they  have  read  the 
various  fugitive  writings  in  \vhich  these  crotchets  lia\e 
been  published.  If  an  expert  is  explaining  some  matter  on 


52  THEOPHBA.STUS    SUCH. 

which  you  desire  to  know  the  evidence,  Hinze  teases  you 
with  Tulpian's  guesses,  and  asks  the  expert  what  he  thinks 
of  them. 

In  general,  Hinze  delights  in  the  citation  of  opinions, 
and  would  hardly  remark  that  the  sun  shone  without  an 
air  of  respectful  appeal  or  fervid  adhesion.  The  "  Iliad," 
one  sees,  would  impress  him  little  if  it  were  not  for  what 
Mr.  Fugleman  has  lately  said  about  it;  and  if  you  mention 
an  image  or  sentiment  in  Chaucer  he  seems  not  to  heed 
the  bearing  of  your  reference,  but  immediately  tells  you 
that  Mr.  Hautboy,  too,  regards  Chaucer  as  a  poet  of  the 
first  order,  and  he  is  delighted  to  find  that  two  such  judges 
as  you  and  Hautboy  are  at  one. 

What  is  the  reason  of  all  this  subdued  ecstasy,  moving 
about,  hat  in  hand,  with  well-dressed  hair  and  attitudes  of 
unimpeachable  correctness?  Some  persons  conscious  of 
sagacity  decide  at  once  that  Hinze  knows  what  he  is  about 
in  flattering  Tulpian,  and  has  a  carefully  appraised  end  to 
serve  though  they  may  not  see  it.  They  are  misled  by  the 
common  mistake  of  supposing  that  men's  behavior,  whether 
habitual  er  occasional,  is  chiefly  determined  by  a  distinctly 
conceived  motive,  a  definite  object  to  be  gained  or  a  definite 
evil  to  be  avoided.  The  truth  is,  that,  the  primitive  wants 
of  nature  once  tolerably  satisfied,  the  majority  of  mankind, 
even  in  a  civilized  life  full  of  solicitations,  are  with  diffi- 
culty aroused  to  the  distinct  conception  of  an  object 
toward  which  they  will  direct  their  actions  with  careful 
adaptation,  and  it  is  yet  rarer  to  find  one  who  can  persist 
in  the  systematic  pursuit  of  such  an  end.  Few  lives  are 
shaped,  few  characters  formed,  by  the  contemplation  of 
definite  consequences  seen  from  a  distance  and  made  the 
goal  of  continuous  effort  or  the  beacon  of  a  constantly 
avoided  danger:  such  control  by  foresight,  such  vivid 
picturing  and  practical  logic  are  the  distinction  of  excep- 
tionally strong  natures;  but  society  is  chiefly  made  up  of 
human  beings  whose  daily  acts  are  all  performed  either 
in  unreflecting  obedience  to  custom  and  routine  or  from 
immediate  promptings  of  thought  or  feeling  to  execute  an 
immediate  purpose.  They  pay  their  poor-rates,  give  their 
vote  in  affairs  political  or  parochial,  wear  a  certain  amount 
of  starch,  hinder  boys  from  tormenting  the  helpless,  and 
spend  money  on  tedious  observances  called  pleasures,  with- 
out mentally  adjusth:k  these  practices  to  their  own  well- 
understood  interest  or  to  the  general,  ultimate  welfare  of 
the  human  race;  and  when  they  fall  into  ungraceful  com- 


A    TOO    DEFERENTIAL   MAN.  53- 

pliment,  excessive  smiling  or  other  luckless  efforts  of  com- 
plaisant behavior,  these  are  hut  the  tricks  or  habits  grad- 
ually formed  under  the  successive  promptings  of  a  wish  to 
be  agreeable,  stimulated  day  by  day  without  any  widening 
resources  for  gratifying  the  wish.  It  does  not  in  the  least 
follow  that  they  are  seeking  by  studied  hypocrisy  to  get 
something  for  themselves.  And  so  with  Hinze's  deferen- 
tial bearing,  complimentary  parentheses,  and  worshipful 
tones,  which  seem  to  some  like  the  over-acting  of  a  part  in 
a  comedy.  He  expects  no  appointment  or  other  appreci- 
able gain  through  Tulpian's  favor;  he  has  no  doubleness 
toward  Felicia;  there  is  no  sneering  or  backbiting  obverse 
to  his  ecstatic  admiration.  He  is  very  well  off  in  the 
world,  and  cherishes  no  unsatisfied  ambition  that  could 
feed  design  and  direct  flattery.  As  you  perceive,  he  has 
had  the  education  and  other  advantages  of  a  gentleman 
without  being  conscious  of  marked  result,  such  as  a  decided 
preference  for  any  particular  ideas  or  functions:  his  mind 
is  furnished  as  hotels  are,  with  everything  for  occasional 
and  transient  use.  But  one  cannot  be  an  Englishman 
and  gentleman  in  general:  it  is  in  the  nature  of  things 
that  one  must  have  an  individuality,  though  it  may  be  of 
an  often-repeated  type.  As  Hinze  in  growing  to  maturity 
had  grown  into  a  particular  form  and  expression  of  person, 
so  he  necessarily  gathered  a  manner  and  frame  of  speech 
which  made  him  additionally  recognizable.  His  nature  is 
not  tuned  to  the  pitch  of  a  genuine  direct  admiration,  only 
to  an  attitudinizing  deference  which  does  not  fatigue  itself 
with  the  formation  of  real  judgments.  All  human  achieve- 
ment must  be  Wrought  down  to  this  spoon-meat  —  this 
mixture  of  other  persons'  washy  opinions  and  his  own  flux 
of  reverence  for  what  is  third-hand,  before  Hinze  can  find 
a  relish  for  it. 

He  has  no  more  leading  characteristic  than  the  desire  to 
stand  well  with  those  who  are  justly  distinguished;  he  has 
ho  base  admirations,  and  you  may  know  by  his  entire  pres- 
entation of  himself,  from  the  management  of  his  hat  to 
the  angle  at  which  he  keeps  his  right  foot,  that  he  aspires 
to  correctness.  Desiring  to  behave  becomingly  and  also 
to  make  a  figure  in  dialogue,  he  is  only  like  the  bad  artist 
whose  picture  is  a  failure.  We  may  pity  these  ill-gifted 
strivers,  but  not  pretend  that  their  works  are  pleasant  to 
behold.  A  man  is  bound  to  know  something  of  his  own 
weight  and  muscular  dexterity,  and  the  puny  athlete  is 
called  foolish  before  he  is  seen  to  be  thrown.  Hinze  has 


54  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

not  the  stuff  in  him  to  be  at  once  agreeably  conversational 
and  sincere,  and  he  has  got  himself  up  to  be  at  all  events 
agreeably  conversational.  Notwithstanding  this  deliber- 
ateness  of  intention  in  his  talk  he  is  unconscious  of  falsity, 
for  he  has  not  enough  of  deep  and  lasting  impression  to 
find  a  contrast  or  diversity  between  his  words  and  his 
thoughts.  He  is  not  fairly  to  be  called  a  hypocrite,  but  I 
have  already  confessed  to  the  more  exasperation  at  his 
make-believe  reverence,  because  it  has  no  deep  hunger  to 
excuse  it. 


ONLI   TEJIffER.  55 


VI. 
ONLY    TEMPEK. 

WHAT  is  temper?  Its  primary  meaning,  the  proportion 
and  mode  in  which  qualities  are  mingled,  is  much  neg- 
lected in  popular  speech,  yet  even  here  the  word  often 
carries  a  reference  to  an  habitual  state  or  general  tendency 
of  the  organism  in  distinction  from  what  are  held  to  be 
specific  virtues  and  vices.  As  people  confess  to  bad  mem- 
ory without  expecting  to  sink  in  mental  reputation,  so 
we  hear  a  man  declared  to  have  a  bad  temper  and  yet 
glorified  us  the  possessor  of  every  high  quality.  When  he 
errs  or  in  any  way  commits  himself,  his  temper  is  accused, 
not  his  character,  and  it  is  understood  that  but  for  a 
brutal,  bearish  mood  he  is  kindness  itself.  If  he  kicks 
.small  animals,  swears  violently  at  a  servant  who  mistakes 
orders,  or  is  grossly  rude  to  his  wife,  it  is  remarked  apolo- 
getically that  these  things  mean  nothing — they  are  all 
temper. 

Certainly  there  is  a  limit  to  this  form  of  apology,  and 
the  forgery  of  a  bill,  or  the  ordering  of  goods  without  any 
prospect  of  paying  for  them,  has  never  been  set  down  to 
an  unfortunate  habit  of  sulkiness  or  of  irascibility.  But 
on  the  whole  there  is  a  peculiar  exercise  of  indulgence 
toward  the  manifestations  of  bad  temper  which  tends  to 
encourage  them,  so  that  we  are  in  danger  of  having  among 
us  a  number  of  virtuous  persons  who  conduct  themselves 
detestably,  just  as  we  have  hysterical  patients  who,  with 
sound  organs,  are  apparently  laboring  under  many  sorts  of 
organic  disease.  Let  it  be  admitted,  however,  that  a  man 
may  be  a  "good  fellow  "and  yet  have  a  bad  temper,  so 
bad  that  \ve  recognize  his  merits  with  reluctance,  and  are 
inclined  to  resent  his  occasionally  amiable  behavior  as  an 
unfair  demand  on  our  admiration. 

Touchwood  is  that  kind  of  good  fellow.  He  is  by  turns 
insolent,  quarrelsome,  repulsively  haughty  to  innocent 
people  who  approach  him  with  respect,  neglectful  of  his 
friends,  angry  in  face  of  legitimate  demands,  procrasti- 
nating in  the  fulfillment  of  such  demands,  prompted  to 
rude  words  and  harsh  looks  by  a  moody  disgust  with  hia 


5f  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

fellow-men  in  general — and  yet,  as  everybody  will  assure- 
you,  the  soul  of  honor,  a  steadfast  friend,  a  defender  of 
the  oppressed,  an  affectionate  -  hearted  creature.  Pity 
that,  after  a  certain  experience  of  his  moods,  his  intimacy 
becomes  insupportable!  A  man  who  uses  his  balmorals  to 
tread  on  your  toes  with  much  frequency  and  an  unmis- 
takable emphasis  may  prove  a  fast  friend  in  adversity,  but 
meanwhile  your  adversity  has  not  arrived  and  your  toes 
are  tender.  The  daily  sneer  or  growl  at  your  remarks  is 
not  to  be  made  amends  for  by  a  possible  eulogy  or  defense 
of  your  understanding  against  depreciators  who  may  not 
present  themselves,  and  on  an  occasion  which  may  never 
arise.  I  cannot  submit  to  a  chronic  state  of  blue  and 
green  bruise  as  a  form  of  insurance  against  an  accident. 

Touchwood's  bad  temper  is  of  the  contradicting,  pugna- 
cious sort.  He  is  the  honorable  gentleman  in  opposition,, 
whatever  proposal  or  proposition  may  be  broached,  and 
when  others  join  him  he  secretly  damns  their  superfluous- 
agreement,  quickly  discovering  that  his  way  of  stating  the 
case  is  not  exactly  theirs.  An  invitation  or  any  sign  of 
expectation  throws  him  into  an  attitude  of  refusal.  Ask 
his  concurrence  in  a  benevolent  measure:  he  will  not 
decline  to  give  it,  because  he  has  a  real  sympathy  with  good 
aims;  but  he  complies  resentfully,  though  where  he  is  let 
alone  he  will  do  much  more  than  any  one  would  have 
thought  of  asking  for.  No  man  would  shrink  with  greater 
sensitiveness  from  the  imputation  of  not  paying  his  debts, 
yet  when  a  bill  is  sent  in  with  any  promptitude  he  is 
inclined  to  make  the  tradesman  wait  for  the  money  he  is 
in  such  a  hurry  to  get.  One  sees  that  this  antagonistic 
temper  must  be  much  relieved  by  finding  a  particular 
object,  and  that  its  worst  moments  must  be  those  where 
the  mood  is  that  of  vague  resistance,  there  being  nothing 
specific  to  oppose.  Touchwood  is  never  so  little  engaging 
as  when  he  comes  down  to  breakfast  with  a  cloud  on  his 
brow,  after  parting  from  you  the  night  before  with  an 
affectionate  effusiveness  at  the  end  of  a  confidential  con- 
versation which  has  assured  you  of  mutual  understanding. 
Impossible  that  you  can  have  committed  any  offense.  If 
mice  have  disturbed  him,  that  is  not  your  fault;  but, 
nevertheless,  your  cheerful  greeting  had  better  not  convey 
any  reference  to  the  weather,  else  it  will  be  met  by  a  sneer 
which,  taking  you  unawares,  may  give  you  a  crushing 
sense  that  you  make  a  poor  figure  with  your  cheerfulness, 
which  was  not  asked  for.  Some  daring  person  perhaps 


ONLY   TEMPER.  57 

introduces  another  topic,  and  uses  the  delicate  flattery  of 
appealing  to  Touchwood  for  his  opinion,  the  topic  being 
included  in  his  favorite  studies.  An  indistinct  muttering, 
with  a  look  at  the  carving-knife  in  reply,  teaches  that 
during  person  how  ill  lie  has  chosen  a  market  for  his  defer- 
ence. If  Touchwood's  behavior  affects  you  very  closely, 
you  had  better  break  your  leg  in  the  course  of  the  day:  his 
bad  temper  will  then  vanish  at  once;  he  will  take  a  painful 
journey  on  your  behalf;  he  will  sit  up  with  you  night 
after  night;  he  will  do  all  the  work  of  your  department  so 
as  to  save  you  from  any  loss  in  consequence  of  your  acci- 
dent; he  will  be  even  uniformly  tender  to  you  ti41  you  are 
well  on  your  legs  again,  when  he  will  some  fine  morning 
insult  you  without  provocation,  and  make  you  wish  that 
his  generous  goodness  to  you  had  not  closed  your  lips 
against  retort. 

It  is  not  always  necessary  that  a  friend  should  break  his 
leg,  for  Touchwood  to  feel  compunction  and  endeavor  to 
make  amends  for  his  bearish  ness  or  insolence.  He  becomes 
spontaneously  conscious  that  he  has  misbehaved,  and  he  is 
not  only  ashamed  of  himself,  but  has  the  better  prompting 
to  try  and  heal  any  wound  he  has  inflicted.  Unhappily 
the  habit  of  being  offensive  "without  meaning  it"  leads 
usually  to  a  way  of  making  amends  which  the  injured 
person  cannot  but  regard  as  a  being  amiable  without 
meaning  it.  The  kindnesses,  the  complimentary  indica- 
tions or  assurances,  are  apt  to  appear  in  the  light  of  a 
penance  adjusted  to  the  foregoing  lapses,  and  by  the  very 
contrast  they  offer  call  up  a  keener  memory  of  the  wrong 
they  atone  for.  They  are  not  a  spontaneous  prompting  of 
goodwill,  but  an  elaborate  compensation.  And,  in  fact, 
Dion's  atoning  friendliness  has  a  ring  of  artificiality. 
Because  he  formerly  disguised  his  good  feeling  toward  you 
he  now  expresses  more  than  he  quite  feels.  It  is  in  vain. 
Having  made  you  extremely  uncomfortable  last  week  he 
has  absolutely  diminished  his  power  of  making  you  happy 
to-day:  he  struggles  against  this  result  by  excessive  effort, 
but  he  has  taught  you  to  observe  his  fitfulness  rather  than 
to  be  warmed  by  his  episodic  show  of  regard. 

I  suspect  that  many  persons  who  have  an  uncertain, 
incalculable  temper  flatter  themselves  that  it  enhances 
their  fascination;  but  perhaps  they  are  under  the  prior 
mistake  of  exaggerating  the  charm  which  they  suppose 
to  be  thus  strengthened;  in  any  case  they  will  do  well  not 
to  trust  in  the  attractions  of  caprice  and  moodiness  for  a 


58  THEOPHEASTUS    SUCH. 

long  continuance  or  for  close  intercourse.  A  pretty  woman 
may  fan  the  flame  of  distant  adorers  by  harassing  them, 
but  if  she  lets  one  of  them  make  her  his  wife,  the  point 
of  view  from  which  he  will  look  at  her  poutings  and  toss- 
ings  and  mysterious  inability  to  be  pleased  will  be  seriously 
altered.  And  if  slavery  to  a  pretty  woman,  which  seems 
among  the  least  conditional  forms  of  abject  service,  will 
not  bear  too  groat  a  strain  from  her  bad  temper  even 
though  her  beauty  remain  the  same,  it  is  clear  that  a  man 
whose  claims  lie  in  his  high  character  or  high  perform- 
ances had  need  impress  us  very  constantly  with  his  peculiar 
value  and  indispensableness,  if  he  is  to  test  our  patience 
by  an  uncertainty  of  temper  which  leaves  us  absolutely 
without  grounds  for  guessing  how  he  will  receive  our  per- 
sons or  humbly  advanced  opinions,  or  what  line  he  will 
take  on  any  but  the  most  momentous  occasions. 

For  it  is  among  the  repulsive  effects  of  this  bad  temper, 
which  is  supposed  to  be  compatible  with  shining  virtues, 
that  it  is  apt  to  determine  a  man's  sudden  adhesion  to  an 
opinion,  whether  on  a  personal  or  an  impersonal  matter, 
without  leaving  him  time  to  consider  his  grounds.  The 
adhesion  is  sudden  and  momentary,  but  it  either  forms  a 
precedent  for  his  line  of  thought  and  action,  or  it  is  pres- 
ently seen  to  have  been  inconsistent  with  his  true  mind. 
This  determination  of  partisanship  by  temper  has  its  worst 
effects  in  the  career  of  the  public  man,  who  is  always  in 
danger  of  getting  so  enthralled  by  his  own  words  that  he 
looks  into  facts  and  questions  not  to  get  rectifying  knowl- 
edge, but  to  get  evidence  that  will  justify  his  actual  atti- 
tude which  was  assumed  under  an  impulse  dependent  on 
something  else  than  knowledge.  There  lias  been  plenty  of 
insistance  on  the  evil  of  swearing  by  the  words  of  a  master, 
and  having  the  judgment  controlled  by  a  "He  said  it;"  but 
a  much  worse  woe  to  befall  a  man  is  to  have  every  judg- 
ment controlled  by  an.  "  I  said  it " — to  make  a  divinity  of 
his  own  short-sightedness  or  passion-led  aberration  i  ;;d 
explain  the  world  in  its  honor.  There  is  hardly  a  more 
pitiable  degradation  than  this  for  a  man  of  high  gifts. 
Hence  I  cannot  join  with  those  who  wish  that  Touchwood, 
being  young  enough  to  enter  on  public  life,  should  get 
elected  for  Parliament  and  use  his  excellent  abilities  to 
serve  his  country  in  that  conspicuous  manner.  For  hith- 
erto, in  the  less  momentous  incidents  of  private  life,  his 
capricious  temper  has  only  produced  the  minor  evil  of 
inconsistency,  and  he  is  even  greatly  at  ease  in  contradict- 


ONLY   TEMPEB.  59 

ing  himself,  provided  he  can  contradict  you,  and  disap- 
point any  smiling  expectation  you  may  have  shown  that 
the  impressions  you  are  uttering  are  likely  to  meet  with 
his  sympathy,  considering  that  the  day  before  he  himself 
pive  you  the  example  which  your  mind  is  following.  He 
is  at  least  free  from  those  fetters  of  self-justification  which 
are  the  curse  of  parliamentary  speaking,  and  what  I  rather 
desire  for  him  is  that  he  should  produce  the  great  book 
which  he  is  generally  pronounced  capable  of  writing,  and 
put  his  best  self  imperturbably  on  record  for  the  advantage 
of  society;  because  I  should  then  have  steady  ground  for 
bearing  with  his  diurnal  incalculableness,  and  could  fix 
my  gratitude  as  by  a  strong  staple  to  that  unvarying  mon- 
umental service.  Unhappily,  Touchwood's  great  powers 
have  been  only  so  far  manifested  as  to  be  believed  in,  not 
demonstrated.  Everybody  rates  them  highly,  and  thinks 
that  whatever  he  chose  to  do  would  be  done  in  a  first-rate 
manner.  Is  it  his  love  of  disappointing  complacent 
expectancy  which  has  gone  so  far  as  to  keep  up  this 
lamentable  negation,  and  made  him  resolve  not  to  write 
the  comprehensive  work  which  he  would  have  written  if 
nobody  had  expected  it  of  him? 

One  can  see  that  if  Touchwood  were  to  become  a 
public  man  and  take  to  frequent  speaking  on  platforms 
or  from  his  seat  in  the  House,  it  would  hardly  be  pos- 
sible for  him  to  maintain  much  integrity  of  opinion,  or  to 
avoid  courses  of  partisanship  which  a  healthy  public  senti- 
ment would  stamp  with  discredit.  Say  that  he  were 
endowed  with  the  purest  honesty,  it  would  inevitably  be 
dragged  captive  by  this  mysterious,  Protean  bad  temper. 
There  would  be  the  fatal  public  necessity  of  justifying  ora- 
torical Temper  which  had  got  on  its  legs  in  its  bitter  mood  and 
made  insulting  imputations,  or  of  keeping  up  some  decent 
show  of  consistency  with  opinions  vented  out  of  Temper's 
contradictoriness.  And  words  would  have  to  be  followed 
up  by  acts  of  adhesion. 

Certainly,  if  a  bad-tempered  man  can  be  admirably  virt- 
uous, he  must  be  so  under  extreme  difficulties.  I  doubt 
the  possibility  that  a  high  order  of  character  can  coexist 
with  a  temper  like  Touchwood's.  For  it  is  of  the  nature 
of  such  temper  to  interrupt  the  formation  of  healthy 
mental  habits,  which  d°pend  on  a  growing  harmony 
between  perception,  conviction  and  impulse.  There  may 
be  good  feelings,  good  deeds — for  a  human  nature  may 
pack  endless  varieties  and  blessed  inconsistencies  in  its 


60  THEOPHKASTL6    SUCH. 

windings — but  it  is  essential  to  what  is  worthy  to  be  called 
high  character,  that  it  may  be  safely  calculated  on,  and 
that  its  qualities  shall  have  taken  the  form  of  principles  or 
laws  habitually,  if  not  perfectly,  obeyed. 

If  a  man  frequently  passes  unjust  judgments,  takes  up 
false  attitudes,  intermits  his  acts  of  kindness  with  rude 
behavior  or  cruel  words,  and  falls  into  the  consequent  vul- 
gar error  of  supposing  that  he  can  make  amends  by  labored 
agreeableness,  I  cannot  consider  such  courses  any  the  less 
ugly  because  they  are  ascribed  to  "temper."  Especially  I 
object  to  the  assumption  that  his  having  a  fundamentally 
good  disposition  is  either  an  apology  or  a  compensation  for 
his  bad  behavior.  If  his  temper  yesterday  inade  him  lash 
the  horses,  upset  the  curricle  and  cause  a  breakage  in  my 
rib,  I  feel  it  no  compensation  that  to-day  he  vows  he  will 
drive  me  anywhere  in  the  gentlest  manner  any  day  as  long 
as  he  lives.  Yesterday  was  what  it  was,  my  rib  is  paining 
me,  it  is  not  a  main  object  of  my  life  to  be  driven  by 
Touchwood — and  I  have  no  confidence  in  his  lifelong  gen- 
tleness. The  utmost  form  of  placability  I  am  capable  of 
is  to  try  and  remember  his  better  deeds  already  performed, 
and,  mindful  of  my  own  offenses,  to  bear  him  no  malice. 
But  I  cannot  accept  his  amends. 

If  the  bad-tempered  man  wants  to  apologize,  he  had 
need  to  do  it  on  a  large  public  scale,  make  some  beneficent 
discovery,  produce  some  stimulating  work  of  genius, 
invent  some  powerful  process — prove  himself  such  a  good 
to  contemporary  multitudes  and  future  generations,  as  to 
make  the  discomfort  he  causes  his  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances a  vanishing  quantity,  a  trifle  even  in  their  own 
estimate. 


A    POLITICAL   MOLECULE.  61 


VII. 
A  POLITICAL  MOLECULE. 

THE  most  arrant  denier  must  admit  that  a  man  often 
furthers  larger  ends  than  he  is  conscious  of,  and  that 
while  he  is  transacting  his  particular  affairs  with  the  nar- 
row pertinacity  of  a  respectable  ant,  he  subserves  an 
economy  larger  than  any  purpose  of  his  own.  Society  is 
happily  not  dependent  for  the  growth  of  fellowship  on  the 
small  majority  already  endowed  with  comprehensive  sym- 
pathy: any  molecule  of  the  body  politic  working  toward 
his  own  interest  in  an  orderly  way  gets  his  understanding 
more  or  less  penetrated  with  the  fact  that  his  interest  is 
included  in  that  of  a  large  number.  I  have  watched  sev- 
eral political  molecules  being  educated  in  this  way  by  the 
nature  of  tilings  into  a  faint  feeling  of  fraternity.  But  at 
this  moment  I  am  thinking  of  Spike,  an  elector  who  voted 
on  the  side  of  Progress  though  he  was  not  inwardly 
attached  to  it  under  that  name.  For  abstractions  are 
deities  having  many  specific  names,  local  habitations,  and 
forms  of  activity,  and  so  get  a  multitude  of  devout  serv- 
ants who  care  no  more  for  them  under  their  highest  titles 
than  the  celebrated  person  who,  putting  with  forcible 
brevity  a  view  of  human  motives  now  much  insisted  on, 
asked  what  Posterity  had  done  for  him  that  he  should 
care  for  Posterity?  To  many  minds  even  among  the 
ancients  (thought  by  some  to  have  been  invariably  poetical) 
the  goddess  of  wisdom  was  doubtless  worshipped  simply  as 
the  patroness  of  spinning  and  weaving.  Now  spinning 
and  weaving  from  a  manufacturing,  wholesale  point  of 
view,  was  the  chief  form  under  which  Spike  from  early 
years  had  unconsciously  been  a  devotee  of  Progress. 

He  was  a  political  molecule  of  the  most  gentlemanlike 
appearance,  not  less  than  six  feet  high,  and  showing  the 
utmost  nicety  in  the  care  of  his  person  and  equipment. 
His  umbrella  was  especially  remarkable  for  its  neatness, 
though  perhaps  he  swung  it  unduly  in  walking.  His  com- 
plexion was  fresh,  his  eyes  small,  bright,  and  twin1-1'  g. 
lie  \vas  seen  to  great  advantage  in  a  hat  and  greatcoat — 
garments  frequently  fatal  to  the  impressiveness  of  shorter 


62  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

figures;  but  when  he  was  uncovered  in  the  drawing-room, 
it  was  impossible  not  to  observe  that  his  head  shelved  off 
too  rapidly  from  the  eyebrows  toward  the  crown,  and  that 
his  length  of  limb  seemed  to  have  used  up  his  mind  so  as 
to  cause  an  air  of  abstraction  from  conversational  topics. 
He  appeared,  indeed,  to  be  preoccupied  with  a  sense  of  his 
exquisite  cleanliness,  clapped  his  hands  together  and 
rubbed  them  frequently,  straightened  his  back,  and  even 
opened  his  mouth  and  closed  it  again  with  a  slight  snap, 
apparently  for  no  other  purpose  than  the  confirmation  to 
himself  of  his  own  powers  in  that  line.  These  are  inno- 
cent exercises,  but  they  are  not  such  as  give  weight  to  a 
man's  personality.  Sometimes  Spike's  mind,  emerging 
from  its  preoccupation,  burst  forth  in  a  remark  delivered 
with  smiling  zest;  as,  that  he  did  like  to  see  gravel  walks 
well  rolled,  or  that  a  lady  should  always  wear  the  best 
jewelry,  or  that  a  bride  was  a  most  interesting  object;  but 
finding  these  ideas  received  rather  coldly,  he  would  relapse 
into  abstraction,  draw  up  his  back,  wrinkle  his  brows 
longitudinally,  and  seem  to  regard  society,  even  including 
gravel  walks,  jewelry,  and  brides,  as  essentially  a  poor 
affair.  Indeed  his  habit  of  mind  was  desponding,  and 
he  took  melancholy  views  as  to  the  possible  extent  of 
human  pleasure  and  the  value  of  existence.  Especially 
after  he  had  made  his  fortune  in  the  cotton  manu- 
facture, and  had  thus  attained  the  chief  object  of  his 
ambition — the  object  which  had  engaged  his  talent  for  order 
and  persevering  application.  For  his  easy  leisure  caused 
him  much  ennui.  He  was  abstemious,  and  had  none  of 
those  temptations  to  sensual  excess  which  fill  up  a  man's 
time  first  with  indulgence  and  then  with  the  process  of 
getting  well  from  its  effects.  He  had  not,  indeed,  ex- 
hausted the  sources  of  knowledge,  but  here  again  his 
notions  of  human  pleasure  were  narrowed  by  his  want  of 
appetite;  for  though  he  seemed  rather  surprised  at  the 
consideration  that  Alfred  the  Great  was  a  Catholic,  or 
that  apart  from  the  Ten  Commandments  any  conception 
of  moral  conduct  had  occurred  to  mankind,  he  was  not 
stimulated  to  further  inquiries  on  these  remote  matters. 
Yet  he  aspired  to  what  he  regarded  as  intellectual  society, 
willingly  entertained  beneficed  clergymen,  and  bought  the 
books  he  heard  spoken  of,  arranging  them  carefully  on 
the  shelves  of  what  he  called  his  library,  and  occasionally 
sitting  alone  in  the  same  room  with  them.  But  some 
minds  seem  well  glazed  by  nature  against  the  admission 


-i    POLITICAL   MOLECULE.  63 

of  knowledge,  and  Spike's  was  one  of  them.  It  was  not, 
however,  entirely  so  with  regard  to  politics.  He  had  had 
a  strong  opinion  about  the  Reform  Bill,  and  saw  clearly 
that  the  la  r  ire  trading  towns  ought  to  send  members. 
Portraits  of  the  Reform  heroes  hung  framed  and  glazed 
in  his  library:  he  prided  himself  on  being  a  Liberal.  In 
this  last  particular,  as  well  as  in  not  giving  benefactions 
and  not  making  loans  without  interest,  he  showed  unques- 
tionable firmness;  and  on  the  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws, 
again,  he  was  thoroughly  convinced.  His  mind  was  expan- 
sive toward  foreign  markets,  and  his  vivid  imagination 
could  see  that  the  people  from  whom  he  took  corn  might 
be  able  to  take  the  cotton  goods  which  they  had  hitherto 
dispensed  with.  On  his  conduct  in  these  political  con- 
cerns, his  wife,  otherwise  influential  as  a  woman  who 
belonged  to  a  family  with  a  title  in  it,  and  who  had  con- 
descended in  marrying  him,  could  gain  no  hold:  she  had 
to  blush  a  little  at  what  was  called  her  husband's  "radi- 
calism "  —  an  epithet  which  was  a  very  unfair  impeach- 
ment of  Spike,  who  never  went  to  the  root  of  anything. 
But  he  understood  his  own  trading  affairs,  and  in  this 
way  became  a  genuine,  constant  political  element.  If  he 
had  been  born  a  little  later  he  could  have  been  accepted 
as  an  eligible  member  of  Parliament,  and  if  he  had  be- 
longed to  a  high  family  he  might  have  done  for  a  member 
of  the  Government.  Perhaps  his  indifference  to  "views" 
would  have  passed  for  administrative  judiciousness,  and 
he  would  have  been  so  generally  silent  that  he  must  often 
have  been  silent  in  the  right  place.  But  this  is  empty 
speculation:  there  is  no  warrant  for  saying  what  Spike 
would  have  been  and  known  so  as  to  have  made  a  calcula- 
ble political  element,  if  he  had  not  been  educated  by 
having  to  manage  his  trade.  A  small  mind  trained  to 
useful  occupation  for  the  satisfying  of  private  need  be- 
comes a  representative  of  genuine  class-needs.  Spike 
objected  to  certain  items  of  legislation  because  they  ham- 
pered his  own  trade,  but  his  neighbors'  trade  was  hampered 
by  the  same  causes;  and  though  he  would  have  been 
simply  selfish  in  a  question  of  light  or  water  between 
himself  and  a  fellow-townsman,  his  need  for  a  change  in 
legislation,  being  shared  by  all  his  neighbors  in  trade, 
ceased  to  be  simply  selfish,  and  raised  him  to  a  sense  of 
common  injury  and  common  benefit.  True,  if  the  law- 
could  have  been  changed  for  the  benefit  of  his  particular 
business,  leaving  the  cotton  trade  in  general  in  a  sorry 


64  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

condition  while  he  prospered,  Spike  might  not  have 
thought  that  result  intolerably  unjust;  but  the  nature  of 
things  did  not  allow  of  such  a  result  being  contemplated 
as  possible;  it  allowed  of  an  enlarged  market  for  Spike 
only  through  the  enlargement  of  his  neighbors'  market, 
and  the  Possible  is  always  the  ultimate  master  of  our 
efforts  and  desires.  Spike  was  obliged  to  contemplate  a 
general  benefit,  and  thus  became  public-spirited  in  spite 
of  himself.  Or  rather,  the  nature  of  things  transmuted 
his  active  egoism  into  a  demand  for  a  public  benefit. 

Certainly  if  Spike  had  been  born  a  marquis  he  could 
not  have  had  the  same  chance  of  being  useful  as  a  polit- 
ical element.  But  he  might  have  had  the  same  appear- 
ance, have  been  equally  null  in  conversation,  skeptical  as 
to  the  reality  of  pleasure,  and  destitute  of  historical 
knowledge;  perhaps  even  dimly  disliking  Jesuitism  as  a 
quality  in  Catholic  minds,  or  regarding  Bacon  as  the 
inventor  of  physical  science.  The  depth  of  middle-aged 
gentlemen's  ignorance  will  never  be  known,  for  want  of 
public  examinations  in  this  branch. 


THE   WATCH-DOG   OF  KNOWLEDGE.  65 


VIII. 
THE  WATCH-DOG  OF  KNOWLEDGE. 

MORDAX  is  an  admirable  man,  ardent  in  intellectual 
work,  public-spirited,  affectionate,  and  able  to  find  the 
right  words  in  conveying  ingenious  ideas  or  elevated  feel- 
ing. Pity  that  to  all  these  graces  he  cannot  add  what 
would  give  them  the  utmost  finish — the  occasional  admis- 
sion that  he  has  been  in  the  wrong,  the  occasional  frank 
welcome  of  a  new  idea  as  something  not  before  present  to 
his  mind!  But  no:  Mordax's  self-respect  seems  to  be  of 
that  iiery  quality  which  demands  that  none  but  the  mon- 
an-hs  of  thought  shall  have  an  advantage  over  him,  and  in 
the  presence  of  contradiction  or  the  threat  of  having  his 
notions  corrected,  he  becomes  astonishingly  unscrupulous 
and  cruel  for  so  kindly  and  conscientious  a  man. 

"You  are  fond  of  attributing  those  fine  qualities  to 
Mordax,"  said  Acer,  the  other  day,  "but  I  have  not  much 
belief  in  virtues  that  are  always  requiring  to  be  asserted 
in  spite  of  appearances  against  them.  True  fairness  and 
goodwill  show  themselves  precisely  where  his  are  con- 
spicuously absent.  I  mean,  in  recognizing  claims  which 
the  rest  of  the  world  are  not  likely  to  stand  up  for.  It 
does  not  need  much  love  of  truth  and  justice  in  me  to  say 
that  Aldebaran  is  a  bright  star,  or  Isaac  Newton  the 
greatest  of  discoverers;  nor  much  kindliness  in  me  to 
want  my  notes  to  be  heard  above  the  rest  in  a  chorus  of 
hallelujahs  to  one  already  crowned.  It  is  my  way  to  apply 
tests.  Does  the  man  who  has  the  ear  of  the  public  use 
his  advantage  tenderly  toward  poor  fellows  who  may  be 
hindered  of  their  due  if  he  treats  their  pretensions  with 
scorn?  That  is  my  test  of  his  justice  and  benevolence." 

My  answer  was,  that  his  system  of  moral  tests  might  be 
as  delusive  as  what  ignorant  people  take  to  be  tests  of 
intellect  and  learning.  If  the  scholar  or  savant  cannot 
answer  their  haphazard  questions  on  the  shortest  notice, 
their  belief  in  his  capacity  is  shaken.  But  the  better 
informed  have  given  up  the  Johnsonian  theory  of  mind  as 
a  pair  of  legs  able  to  walk  east  or  west  according  to  choice. 
Intellect  is  no  longer  taken  to  be  a  ready-made  dose  of 
ability  to  attain  eminence  (or  mediocrity)  in  all  depart- 
5 


66  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

ments;  it  is  even  admitted  that  application  in  one  line  of 
study  or  practice  has  often  a  laming  effect  in  other  direc- 
tions, and  that  an  intellectual  quality  or  special  facility 
which  is  a  furtherance  in  one  medium  of  effort  is  a  drag 
in  another.  We  have  convinced  ourselves  by  this  time 
that  a  man  may  be  a  sage  in  celestial  physics  and  a  poor 
creature  in  the  purchase  of  seed-corn,  or  even  in  theorizing 
about  the  affections;  that  he  may  be  a  mere  fumbler  in 
physiology  and  yet  show  a  very  keen  insight  into  human 
motives;  that  he  may  seem  the  "poor  Poll"  of  the  com- 
pany in  conversation  and  yet  write  with  some  humorous 
vigor.  It  is  not  true  that  a  man's  intellectual  power  is 
like  the  strength  of  a  timber  beam,  to  be  measured  by  its 
weakest  point. 

Why  should  we  any  more  apply  that  fallacious  standard 
of  what  is  called  consistency  to  a  man's  moral  nature,  and 
argue  against  the  existence  of  fine  impulses  or  habits  of 
feeling  in  relation  to  his  actions  generally,  because  those 
better  movements  are  absent  in  a  class  of  cases  which  act 
peculiarly  on  an  irritable  form  of  his  egoism?  The  mis- 
take might  be  corrected  by  our  taking  notice  that  the 
ungenerous  words  or  acts  which  seem  to  us  the  most  utterly 
incompatible  with  good  dispositions  in  the  offender,  are 
those  which  offend  ourselves.  All  other  persons  are  able 
to  draw  a  milder  conclusion.  Laniger,  who  has  a  temper 
but  no  talent  for  repartee,  having  been  run  down  in  a 
fierce  way  by  Mordax,  is  inwardly  persuaded  that  the 
highly-lauded  man  is  a  wolf  at  heart:  he  is  much  tried  by 
perceiving  that  his  own  friends  seem  to  think  no  worse  of 
the  reckless  assailant  than  they  did  before;  and  Corvus, 
who  has  lately  been  flattered  by  some  kindness  from  Mor- 
dax, is  unmindful  enough  of  Laniger's  feeling  to  dwell  on 
this  instance  of  good-nature  with  admiring  gratitude. 
There  is  a  fable  that  when  the  badger  had  been  stung  all 
over  by  bees,  a  bear  consoled  him  by  a  rhapsodic  account 
of  how  he  himself  had  just  breakfasted  on  their  honey. 
The  badger  replied  peevishly,  "  The  stings  are  in  my  flesh, 
and  the  sweetness  is  on  your  muzzle."  The  bear,  it  is  said, 
was  surprised  at  the  badger's  want  of  altruism. 

But  this  difference  of  sensibility  between  Laniger  and 
his  friends  only  mirrors  in  a  faint  way  the  difference 
between  his  own  point  of  view  and  that  of  the  man  who 
has  injured  him.  If  those  neutral,  perhaps  even  affec- 
tionate persons,  form  no  lively  conception  of  what  Laniger 
suffers,  how  should  Mordax  have  any  such  sympathetic 


THE   WATCH-DOG   OF   KNOWLEDGE.  67 

imagination  to  check  him  in  what  he  persuades  himself  is 
a  scourging  administered  by  the  qualified  man  to  the 
unqualified?  Depend  upon  it,  his  conscience,  though 
active  enough  in  some  relations,  has  never  given  him  a 
twinge  because  of  his  polemical  rudeness  and  even  bru- 
tality. He  would  go  from  the  room  where  he  has  been 
tiring  himself  through  the  watches  of  the  night  in  lifting 
and  turning  a  sick  friend,  and  straightway  write  a  reply 
or  rejoinder  in  which  he  mercilessly  pilloried  a  Laniger 
who  had  supposed  that  he  could  tell  the  world  something 
else  or  more  than  had  been  sanctioned  by  the  eminent 
Mordax — and  what  was  worse,  had  sometimes  really  done 
so.  Does  this  nullify  the  genuineness  of  motive  which 
made  him  tender  to  his  suffering  friend?  Not  at  all.  It 
only  proves  that  his  arrogant  egoism,  set  on  fire,  sends  up 
smoke  and  flame  where  just  before  there  had  been  the 
dews  of  fellowship  and  pity.  He  is  angry  and  equips  him- 
self accordingly — with  a  penknife  to  give  the  offender  a 
comprachico  countenance,  a  mirror  to  show  him  the  effect, 
and  a  pair  of  nailed  boots  to  give  him  his  dismissal.  All 
this  to  teach  him  who  the  Romans  really  were,  and  to 
purge  inquiry  of  incompetent  intrusion,  so  rendering  an 
important*service  to  mankind. 

When  a  man  is  in  a  rage  and  wants  to  hurt  another  in 
consequence,  he  can  always  regard  himself  as  the  civil  arm 
of  a  spiritual  power,  and  all  the  more  easily  because  there 
is  real  need  to  assert  the  righteous  efficacy  of  indignation. 
I  for  my  part  feel  witli  the  Lanigers,  and  should  object  all 
the  more  to  their  or  my  being  lacerated  and  dressed  with 
salt,  if  the  administrator  of  such  torture  alleged  as  a 
motive  his  care  for  truth  and  posterity,  and  got  himself 
pictured  witli  a  halo  in  consequence.  In  transactions 
between  fellow-men  it  h  well  to  consider  a  little,  in  the 
first  place,  what  is  fair  and  kind  toward  the  person  imme- 
diately concerned,  before  we  spit  and  roast  him  on  behalf 
of  the  next  century  but  one.  Wide-reaching  motives, 
blessed  and  glorious  as  they  are,  and  of  the  highest  sacra- 
mental virtue,  have  their  dangers,  like  all  else  that  touches 
the  mixed  life  of  the  earth.  They  are  archangels  with 
awful  brow  and  flaming  sword,  summoning  and  encourag- 
ing us  to  do  the  right  and  the  divinely  heroic,  and  we  feel 
a  beneficent  tremor  in  their  presence;  but  to  learn  what  it 
is  they  thus  summon  us  to  do,  we  have  to  consider  the 
mortals  we  aiv  elbowing,  who  are  of  our  own  stature  and 
our  own  appetites.  I  cannot  feel  sure  how  my  voting  will 


68  THEOPHKASTUS   SUCH. 

affect  the  condition  of  Central  Asia  in  the  coming  ages, 
but  I  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  future  popula- 
tions there  will  be  none  the  worse  off  because  I  abstain 
from  conjectural  villification  of  my  opponents  during  the 
present  parliamentary  session,  and  I  am  very  sure  that  I 
shall  be  less  injurious  to  my  contemporaries.  On  the 
whole,  and  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances,  the  action  by 
which  we  can  do  the  best  for  future  ages  is  of  the  sort 
which  has  a  certain  beneficence  and  grace  for  contempo- 
raries. A  sour  father  may  reform  prisons,  but  considered 
in  his  sourness  he  does  harm.  The  deed  of  Judas  has 
been  attributed  to  far-reaching  views,  and  the  wish  to 
hasten  his  Master's  declaration  of  Himself  as  the  Messiah. 
Perhaps — I  will  not  maintain  the  contrary — Judas  repre- 
sented his  motive  in  this  way,  and  felt  justified  in  his 
traitorous  kiss;  but  my  belief  that  he  deserved,  metaphor- 
ically speaking,  to  be  where  Dante  saw  him  at  the  bottom 
of  the  Malebolge,  would  not  be  the  less  strong  because  he 
was  not  convinced  that  his  action  was  detestable.  I  refuse 
to  accept  a  man  who  has  the  stomach  for  such  treachery, 
as  a  hero  impatient  for  the  redemption  of  mankind  and 
for  the  beginning  of  a  reign  when  the  kisses  shall  be  those 
of  peace  and  righteousness. 

All  this  is  by  the  way,  to  show  that  my  apology  for  Mor- 
dax  was  not  founded  on  his  persuasion  of  superiority  in 
his  own  motives,  but  on  the  compatibility  of  unfair,  equivo- 
cal, and  even  cruel  actions  with  a  nature  which,  apart 
from  special  temptations,  is  kindly  and  generous;  and  also 
to  enforce  the  need  of  checks  from  a  fellow-feeling  with 
those  whom  our  acts  immediately  (not  distantly)  concern. 
Will  any  one  be  so  hardy  as  to  maintain  that  an  otherwise 
worthy  man  cannot  be  vain  and  arrogant?  I  think  most 
of  us  have  some  interest  in  arguing  the  contrary.  And  it 
is  of  the  nature  of  vanity  and  arrogance,  if  unchecked,  to 
become  cruel  and  self-justifying.  There  are  fierce  beasts 
within:  chain  them,  chain  them,  and  let  them  learn  to 
cower  before  the  creature  with  wider  reason.  This  is 
what  one  wishes  for  Mordax — that  his  heart  and  brain 
should  restrain  the  outleap  of  roar  and  talons. 

As  to  his  unwillingness  to  admit  that  an  idea  which  he 
has  not  discovered  is  novel  to  him,  one  is  surprised  that 
quick  intellect  and  shrewd  observation  do  not  early  gather 
reasons  for  being  ashamed  of  a  mental  trick  which  makes 
one  among  the  comic  parts  of  that  various  actor  Conceited 
Ignorance. 


THE    WATCH-DOG   OF    KNOWLEDGE.  69 

I  have  a  sort  of  valet  and  factotum,  an  excellent, 
respectable  servant,  whose  spelling  is  so  unvitiated  by  non- 
phonetic  superfluities  that  he  writes  niglit  as  nit.  One 
day,  looking  over  his  accounts,  I  said  to  him  jocosely, 
"  You  are  in  the  latest  fashion  with  your  spelling,  Pum- 
mel: most  people  spell  'night'  with  a  gh  between  the  i 
and  the  t,  but  the  greatest  scholars  now  spell  it  as  you  do." 
"So  I  suppose,  sir,"  says  Pummel;  "Pve  see  it  with  a  gh, 
but  I've  noways  give  into  that  myself." 

You  would  never  catch  Pummel  in  an  interjection  of 
surprise.  I  have  sometimes  laid  traps  for  his  astonish- 
ment, but  he  has  escaped  them  all,  either  by  a  respectful 
neutrality,  as  of  one  who  would  not  appear  to  notice  that 
his  master  hud  been  taking  too  much  wine,  or  else  by  that 
strong  persuasion  of  his  all-knowingness  which  makes  it 
simply  impossible  for  him  to  feel  himself  newly  informed. 
If  I  tell  him  that  the  world  is  spinning  round  and  along 
like  a  top,  and  that  he  is  spinning  with  it,  he  says,  "Yes, 
I've  heard  a  deal  of  that  in  my  time,  sir,"  and  lift?;  the 
horizontal  lines  of  his  brow  a  little  higher,  balancing  his 
head  from  side  to  side  as  if  it  were  too  painfully  full. 
Whether  I  tell  him  that  they  cook  puppies  in  China,  that 
there  are  ducks  with  fur  coats  in  Australia,  or  that  in 
some  parts  of  the  world  it  is  the  pink  of  politeness  to  put 
your  tongue  out  on  introduction  to  a  respectable  stranger, 
Pummel  replies,  "  So  I  suppose,  sir,"  with  an  air  of  resig- 
nation to  hearing  my  poor  version  of  well-known  things, 
such  as  elders  use  in  listening  to  lively  boys  lately  pre- 
sented with  an  anecdote  book.  His  utmost  concession  is, 
that  what  you  state  is  what  he  wottld  have  supplied  if  you 
had  given  him  carte  blanche  instead  of  your  needless 
instruction,  and  in  this  sense  his  favorite  answer  is,  "I 
should  say." 

"  Pummel,"  I  observed,  a  little  irritated  at  not  getting 
my  coffee,  "  if  you  were  to  carry  your  kettle  and  spirits  of 
wine  up  a  mountain  of  a  morning,  your  water  would  boil 
there  sooner.''  "  I  should  say,  sir."  "  Or,  there  are  boil- 
ing springs  in  Iceland.  Better  go  to  Iceland."  "  That's 
what  I've  been  thinking,  sir." 

I  have  taken  to  asking  him  hard  questions,  and  as  I 
expected,  he  never  admits  his  own  inability  to  answer 
them  without  representing  it  as  common  to  the  human 
race.  "  What  is  the  cause  of  the  tides,  Pummel?"  "  Well, 
sir.  nobody  rightly  know?.  Many  gives  their  opinion,  but 
if  I  was  to  give  mine,  it  'ud  be  different." 


70  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

But  while  he  is  never  surprised  himself,  he  is  constantly 
imagining  situations  of  surprise  for  others.  His  own  con- 
sciousness is  that  of  one  so  thoroughly  soaked  in  knowledge 
that  further  absorption  is  impossible,  but  his  neighbors 
appear  to  him  to  be  in  the  state  of  thirsty  sponges  which 
it  is  a  charity  to  besprinkle.  His  great  interest  in  think- 
ing of  foreigners  is  that  they  must  be  surprised  at  what 
they  see  in  England,  and  especially  at  the  beef.  He  is 
often  occupied  with  the  surprise  Adam  must  have  felt  at 
the  sight  of  the  assembled  animals — "  for  he  was  not  like 
us,  sir,  used  from  a  b'y  to  Wombwell's  shows."  He  is  fond 
of  discoursing  to  the  lad  who  acts  as  shoe-black  and  general 
subaltern,  and  I  have  overheard  him  saying  to  that  small 
upstart,  with  some  severity,  "Now  don't  you  pretend  to 
know,  because  the  more  you  pretend  the  more  I  see  your 
ignirance"  —  a  lucidity  on  his  part  which  has  confirmed 
my  impression  that  the  thoroughly  self-satisfied  person  is 
the  only  one  fully  to  appreciate  the  charm  of  humility  in 
others. 

Your  diffident,  self-suspecting  mortal  is  not  very  angry 
that  others  should  feel  more  comfortable  about  themselves, 
provided  they  are  not  otherwise  offensive:  he  is  rather  like 
the  chilly  person,  glad  to  sit  next  a  warmer  neighbor;  or 
the  timid,  glad  to  have  a  courageous  fellow-traveler.  It 
cheers  him  to  observe  the  store  of  small  comforts  that  his 
fellow-creatures  may  find  in  their  self-complacency,  just  as 
one  is  pleased  to  see  poor  old  souls  soothed  by  the  tobacco 
and  snuff  for  which  one  has  neither  nose  nor  stomach 
oneself. 

But  your  arrogant  man  will  not  tolerate  a  presumption 
which  he  sees  to  be  ill-founded.  The  service  he  regards 
society  as  most  in  need  of  is  to  put  down  the  conceit  which 
is  so  particularly  rife  around  him  that  he  is  inclined  to 
believe  it  the  growing  characteristic  of  the  present  age. 
In  the  schools  of  Magna  Gra?cia,  or  in  the  sixth  century 
of  our  era,  or  even  under  Kublai  Khan,  he  finds  a  com- 
parative freedom  from  that  presumption  by  which  his 
contemporaries  are  stirring  his  able  gall.  The  way  people 
will  now  flaunt  notions  which  are  not  his  without  appear- 
ing to  mind  that  they  are  not  his,  strikes  him  as  especially 
disgusting.  It  might  seem  surprising  to  us  that  one 
strongly  convinced  of  his  own  value  should  prefer  to  exalt 
an  age  in  which  he  did  not  flourish,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
reflection  that  the  present  age  is  the  only  one  in  which 
anybody  has  appeared  to  undervalue  him. 


A    HALf-BREED.  71 


IX. 

A   HALF-BREED. 

AN  early  deep-seated  love  to  which  we  become  faithless 
has  its  unfailing  Nemesis,  if  only  in  that  division  of  soul 
which  narrows  all  newer  joys  by  the  intrusion  of  regret 
and  the  established  presentiment  of  change.  I  refer  not 
merely  to  the  love  of  a  person,  but  to  the  love  of  ideas, 
practical  beliefs,  and  social  habits.  And  faithlessness 
here  means  not  a  gradual  conversion  dependent  on 
enlarged  knowledge,  but  a  yielding  to  seductive  circum- 
stance; not  a  conviction  that  the  original  choice  was  a 
mistake,  but  a  subjection  to  incidents  that  flatter  a  grow- 
ing desire.  In  this  sort  of  love  it  is  the  forsaker  who  has 
the  melancholy  lot;  for  an  abandoned  belief  may  be  more 
effectively  vengeful  than  Dido.  The  child  of  a  wandering 
tribe  caught  young  and  trained  to  polite  life,  if  he  feels  an 
hereditary  yearning  can  run  away  to  the  old  wilds  and  get 
his  nature  into  tune.  But  there  is  no  such  recovery  possi- 
ble to  the  man  who  remembers  what  he  once  believed  with- 
out being  convinced  that  he  was  in  error,  who  feels  within 
him  unsatisfied  stirrings  toward  old  beloved  habits  and 
intimacies  from  which  he  has  far  receded  without  con- 
scious justification  or  unwavering  sense  of  superior  attract- 
iveness in  the  new.  This  involuntary  renegade  has  his 
character  hopelessly  jangled  and  out  of  tune.  He  is  like 
an  organ  with  its  stops  in  the  lawless  condition  of  obtrud- 
ing themselves  without  method,  so  that  hearers  are  amazed 
by  the  most  unexpected  transitions — the  trumpet  breaking 
in  on  the  flute,  and  the  oboe  confounding  both. 

Hence  the  lot  of  Mixtus  affects  me  pathetically,  not- 
withstanding that  he  spends  his  growing  wealth  with  lib- 
erality and  manifest  enjoyment.  To  most  observers  he 
appears  to  be  simply  one  of  the  fortunate  and  also  sharp 
commercial  men  who  began  with  meaning  to  be  rich,  and 
have  become  what  they  meant  to  be:  a  man  never  taken 
to  be  xvell-born,  but  surprisingly  better  informed  than  the 
well-born  usually  are,  and  distinguished  among  ordinary 
commercial  magnates  by  a  personal  kindness  which 
prompts  him  not  only  to  help  the  suffering  in  a  material 


72  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

way  through  his  wealth,  but  also  by  direct  ministration  of 
his  own;  yet  with  all  this,  diffusing,  as  it  were,  the  odor 
of  a  man  delightedly  conscious  of  his  wealth  as  an  equiva- 
lent for  the  other  social  distinctions  of  rank  and  intellect 
which  he  can  thus  admire  without  envying.  Hardly  one 
among  those  superficial  observers  can  suspect  that  he  aims 
or  has  ever  aimed  at  being  a  writer;  still  less  can  they 
imagine  that  his  mind  is  often  moved  by  strong  currents 
of  regret  and  of  the  most  unworldly  sympathies  from  the 
memories  of  a  youthful  time  when  his  chosen  associates 
were  men  and  women  whose  only  distinction  was  a  relig- 
ious, a  philanthropic,  or  an  intellectual  enthusiasm,  when 
the  lady  on  whose  words  his  attention  most  hung  was  a 
writer  of  minor  religious  literature,  when  he  was  a  visitor 
and  exhorter  of  the  poor  in  the  alleys  of  a  great  provincial 
town,  and  when  he  attended  the  lectures  given  specially  to 
young  men  by  Mr.  Apollos,  the  eloquent  congregational 
preacher,  who  had  studied  in  Germany  and  had  liberal 
advanced  views  then  far  beyond  the  ordinary  teaching  of 
his  sect.  At  that  time  Mixtus  thought  himself  a  young 
man  of  socially  reforming  ideas,  of  religious  principles  and 
religious  yearnings.  It  was  within  his  prospects  also  to  be 
rich,  but  he  looked  forward  to  a  use  of  his  riches  chiefly 
for  reforming  and  religious  purposes.  His  opinions  were 
of  a  strongly  democratic  stamp,  except  that  even  then, 
belonging  to  the  class  of  employers,  he  was  opposed  to  all 
demands  in  the  employed  that  would  restrict  the  expan- 
siveness  of  trade.  He  was  the  most  democratic  in  relation 
to  the  unreasonable  privileges  of  the  aristocracy  and  landed 
interest;  and  he  had  also  a  religious  sense  of  brotherhood 
with  the  poor.  Altogether,  he  was  a  sincerely  benevolent 
young  man,  interested  in  ideas,  and  renouncing  personal  ease 
for  the  sake  of  study,  religious  communion,  and  good  works. 
If  you  had  known  him  then  you  would  have  expected  him 
to  marry  a  highly  serious  and  perhaps  literary  woman, 
sharing  his  benevolent  and  religious  habits,  and  likely  to 
encourage  his  studies — a  woman  who  along  with  himself 
would  play  a  distinguished  part  in  one  of  the  most  enlight- 
ened religious  circles  of  a  great  provincial  capital. 

How  is  it  that  Mixtus  finds  himself  in  a  London  mansion, 
and  in  society  totally  unlike  that  which  made  the  ideal  of 
his  younger  years?  And  whom  did  he  marry? 

Why,  he  married  Scintilla,  who  fascinated  him  as  she 
had  fascinated  others,  by  her  prettiness,  her  liveliness,  and 
her  music.  It  is  a  common  enough  case— that  of  a  man 


A    HALF-BKEED.  73 

being  suddenly  captivated  by  a  woman  nearly  the  opposite 
of  his  ideal;  or  if  not  wholly  captivated,  at  least  effect- 
ively captured  by  a  combination  of  circumstances  along 
with  an  unwarily  manifested  inclination  which  might 
otherwise  have  been  transient.  Mixtus  was  captivated  and 
then  captured  on  the  worldly  side  of  his  disposition, 
which  had  been  always  growing  and  flourishing  side  by  side 
with  his  philanthropic  and  religious  tastes.  He  had 
ability  in  Dusiness,  and  he  had  early  meant  to  be  rich; 
also  he  was  getting  rich,  and  the  taste  for  such  success  was 
naturally  growing  with  the  pleasure  of  rewarded  exertion. 
It  was  during  a  business  sojourn  in  London  that  he  met 
Scintilla,  who,  though  without  fortune,  associated  with 
families  of  Greek  merchants  living  in  a  style  of  splendor, 
and  with  artists  patronized  by  such  wealthy  entertainers. 
Mixtus  on  this  occasion  became  familiar  with  a  world  in 
which  wealth  seemed  the  key  to  a  more  brilliant  sort  of 
dominance  than  that  of  a  religious  patron  in  the  provin- 
cial circles  of  X.  Would  it  not  be  possible  to  unite  the 
two  kinds  of  sway?  A  man  bent  on  the  most  useful  ends 
might,  with  a  fortune  large  enough,  make  morality  mag- 
nificent, and  recommend  religious  principle  by  showing  it 
in  combination  with  the  best  kind  of  house  and  the  most 
liberal  of  tables;  also  with  a  wife  whose  graces,  wit,  and 
accomplishments  gave  a  finish  sometimes  lacking  even  to 
establishments  got  up  with  that  unhesitating  worldliness 
to  which  high  cost  is  a  sufficient  reason.  Enough. 

Mixtus  married  Scintilla.  Now  this  lively  lady  knew 
nothing  of  Nonconformists,  except  that  they  were  unfash- 
ionable: she  did  not  quite  distinguish  one  conventicle  from 
another,  and  Mr.  Apollos  with  his  enlightened  interpreta- 
tions seemed  to  her  as  heavy  a  bore,  even  if  not  quite  so 
ridiculous,  as  Mr.  Johns  could  have  been  with  his  solemn 
twang  at  the  Baptist  chapel  in  the  lowest  suburbs,  or  as  a 
local  preacher  among  the  Methodists.  In  general,  people 
who  appeared  seriously  to  believe  in  any  sort  of  doctrine, 
whether  religious,  social,  or  philosophical,  seemed  rather 
absurd  to  Scintilla.  Ten  to  one  these  theoretic  people 
pronounced  oddly,  had  some  reason  or  other  for  saying  that 
the  most  agreeable  things  were  wrong,  wore  objectionable 
clothes,  and  wanted  you  to  subscribe  to  something.  They 
were  probably  ignorant  of  art  and  music,  did  not  under- 
stand badinage,  and,  in  fact,  could  talk  of  nothing  amus- 
ing. In  Scintilla's  eyes  the  majority  of  persons  \vere 
ridiculous  and  deplorably  wanting  in  that  keen  perception 


74  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

of  what  was  good  taste,  with  which  she  herself  was 
blessed  by  nature  and  education;  but  the  people  under- 
stood to  be  religious  or  otherwise  theoretic,  were  the  most 
ridiculous  of  all,  without  being  proportionately  amusing 
and  invitable. 

Did  Mixtus  not  discover  this  view  of  Scintilla's  before 
their  marriage?  Or  did  he  allow  her  to  remain  in  igno- 
rance of  habits  and  opinions  which  had  mac'e  half  the 
occupation  of  his  youth? 

When  a  man  is  inclined  to  marry  a  particular  woman, 
and  has  made  any  committal  of  himself,  this  woman's 
opinions,  however  different  from  his  own,  are  readily 
regarded  as  part  of  her  pretty  ways,  especially  it  they  are 
merely  negative;  as  for  example,  that  she  does  not  insist 
on  the  Trinity  or  on  the  rightfulness  or  expediency  of 
church  rates,  but  simply  regards  her  lover's  troubling  him- 
self in  disputation  on  these  heads  as  stuff  and  nonsense. 
The  man  feels  his  own  superior  strength,  and  is  sure  that 
marriage  will  make  no  difference  to  him  on  the  subjects 
about  which  he  is  in  earnest.  And  to  laugh  at  men's 
affairs  is  a  woman's  privilege,  tending  to  enliven  the 
domestic  hearth.  If  Scintilla  had  no  liking  for  the  best 
sort  of  noncomformity,  she  was  without  ^ny  troublesome 
bias  toward  Episcopacy,  Anglicanism,  and  early  sacra- 
ments, and  was  quite  contented  not  to  go  to  church. 

As  to  Scintilla's  acquaintance  with  her  lover's  tastes  on 
these  subjects,  she  was  equally  convinced  on  her  side  that 
a  husband's  queer  ways  while  he  was  a  bachelor  would  be 
easily  laughed  out  of  him  when  he  had  married  an  adroit 
woman.  Mixtus,  she  felt,  was  an  excellent  creature,  quite 
likeable,  who  was  getting  rich;  and  Scintilla  meant  to 
have  all  the  advantages  of  a  rich  man's  wife.  She  was  not 
in  the  least  a  wicked  woman;  she  was  simply  a  pretty  ani- 
mal of  the  ape  kind,  with  an  aptitude  for  certain  accom- 
plishments which  education  had  made  the  most  of. 

But  we  have  seen  what  has  been  the  result  to  poor 
Mixtus.  He  has  become  richer  even  than  he  dreamed  of 
being,  has  a  little  palace  in  London,  and  entertains  with 
splendor  the  half-aristocratic,  professional  and  artistic 
society  which  he  is  proud  to  think  select.  This  society 
regards  him  as  a  clever  fellow  in  his  particular  branch, 
seeing  that  he  has  become  a  considerable  capitalist,  and  as 
a  man  desirable  to  have  on  the  list  of  one's  acquaintances. 
But  from  every  other  point  of  view  Mixtus  finds  himself 
personally  submerged:  what  he  happens  to  think  is  not 


A    HALF-BREED.  75 

felt  by  his  esteemed  guests  to  be  of  any  consequence,  and 
what  he  used  to  think  with  the  ardor  of  conviction  he 
now  hardly  ever  expresses.  He  is  transplanted,  and  the 
sap  within  him  has  long  been  diverted  into  other  than  the 
old  lines  of  vigorous  growth.  How  could  he  speak  to  the 
artist  Crespi  or  to  Sir  Hong  Kong  Bantam  about  the 
enlarged  doctrine  of  Mr.  Apollos?  How  could  he  mention 
to  them  his  former  efforts  toward  evangelizing  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  X.  alleys?  And  his  references  to  his  historical 
and  geographical  studies  toward  a  survey  of  possible  mar- 
kets for  English  products  are  received  with  an  air  of  iron- 
ical suspicion  by  many  of  his  political  friends,  who  take 
his  pretension  to  give  advice  concerning  the  Amazon,  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Niger,  as  equivalent  to  the  currier's 
wide  views  on  the  applicability  of  leather.  He  can  only 
make  a  figure  through  his  genial  hospitality.  It  is  in  vain 
that  he  buys  the  best  pictures  and  statues  of  the  best 
artists.  Xobody  will  call  him  a  judge  in  art.  If  his  pict- 
ures and  statues  are  well  chosen,  it  is  generally  thought 
that  Scintilla  told  him  what  to  buy;  and  yet  Scintilla  in 
other  connections  is  spoken  of  as  having  only  a  superficial 
and  often  questionable  taste.  Mixtus,  it  is  decided,  is  a 
good  fellow,  not  ignorant — no,  really  having  a  good  deal  of 
knowledge  as  well  as  sense,  but  not  easy  to  classify  other- 
wise than  as  a  rich  man.  He  has  consequently  become  a 
little  uncertain  as  to  his  own  point  of  view,  and  in  his 
most  unreserved  moments  of  friendly  intercourse,  even 
when  speaking  to  listeners  whom  he  thinks  likely  to  sym- 
p;it  hize  with  the  earlier  part  of  his  career,  he  presents  him- 
self in  all  his  various  aspects  and  feels  himself  in  turn 
what  he  has  been,  what  he  is,  and  what  others  take  him  to 
be  (for  this  last  status  is  what  we  must  all  more  or  less 
accept).  He  will  recover  with  some  glow  of  enthusiasm 
the  vision  of  his  old  associates,  the  particular  limit  he  was 
once  accustomed  to  trace  of  freedom  in  religious  specula- 
tion, and  his  old  ideal  of  a  worthy  life;  but  he  will  pres- 
ently pass  to  the  argument  that  money  is  the  only  means 
by  which  you  can  get  what  is  best  worth  having  in  the 
world,  and  will  arrive  at  the  exclamation,  "  Give  me 
money!"  with  the  tone  and  gesture  of  a  man  who  both 
feels  and  knows.  Then  if  one  of  his  audience,  not  having 
money,  remarks  that  a  man  may  have  made  up  his  mind  to 
do  without  money  because  he  prefers  something  else,  Mix- 
tus is  with  him  immediately,  cordially  concurring  in  the 
supreme  value  of  the  mind  and  genius,  which  indeed  make 


76  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

his  own  chief  delight,  in  that  he  is  able  to  entertain  the 
admirable  possessors  of  these  attributes  at  his  own  table, 
though  not  himself  reckoned  among  them.  Yet,  he  will 
proceed  to  observe,  there  was  a  time  when  he  sacrificed  his 
sleep  to  study,  and  even  now  amid  the  press  of  business, 
he  from  time  to  time  thinks  of  taking  up  the  manu- 
scripts which  he  hopes  some  day  to  complete,  and  is  always 
increasing  his  collection  of  valuable  works  bearing  on  his 
favorite  topics.  And  it  is  true  that  he  has  read  much  in 
certain  directions,  and  can  remember  what  he  has  read; 
he  knows  the  history  and  theories  of  colonization  and  the 
social  condition  of  countries  that  do  not  at  present  con- 
sume a  sufficiently  large  share  of  our  products  and  manu- 
factures. He  continues  his  early  habit  of  regarding  the 
spread  of  Christianity  as  a  great  result  of  our  commercial 
intercourse  with  black,  brown  and  yellow  populations;  but 
this  is  an  idea  not  spoken  of  in  the  sort  of  fashionable 
society  that  Scintilla  collects  round  her  husband's  table, 
and  Mixtus  now  philosophically  reflects  that  the  cause  must 
come  before  the  effect,  and  that  the  thing  to  be  directly 
striven  for  is  the  commercial  intercourse,  not  excluding  a 
little  war  if  that  also  should  prove  needful  as  a  pioneer  of 
Christianity.  He  has  long  been  wont  to  feel  bashful  about 
his  former  religion;  as  if  it  were  an  old  attachment  having 
consequences  which  he  did  not  abandon,  but  kept  in  decent 
privacy,  his  avowed  objects  and  actual  position  being 
incompatible  with  their  public  acknowledgment. 

There  is  the  same  kind  of  fluctuation  in  his  aspect 
toward  social  questions  and  duties.  He  has  not  lost  the 
kindness  that  used  to  make  him  the  benefactor  and  suc- 
corer  of  the  needy,  and  he  is  still  liberal  in  helping  for- 
ward the  clever  and  industrious;  but  in  his  active  super- 
intendence of  commercial  undertakings  he  has  contracted 
more  and  more  of  the  bitterness  which  capitalists  and 
employers  often  feel  to  be  a  reasonable  mood  toward 
obstructive  proletaries.  Hence  many  who  have  occasion- 
ally met  him  when  trade  questions  were  being  discussed, 
conclude  him  to  be  indistinguishable  from  the  ordinary 
run  of  moneyed  and  money-getting  men.  Indeed,  hardly 
any  of  his  acquaintances  know  what  Mixtus  really  is, 
considered  as  a  whole — nor  does  Mixtus  himself  know  it. 


DEBASING    THE   A1OHAL   CTliKENCY.  77 


X. 

DEBASING  THE  MORAL  CURRENCY. 

"!L  ne  faut  pas  mettre  un  ridicule  ou  il  n'y  en  a  point: 
c'est  se  gater  le  gout,  c'est  corrompre  son  jugement  et 
celui  des  autres.  Mais  le  ridicule  qui  est  quelque  part,  il 
faut  1'y  voir,  Fen  tirer  avec  grace  et  d'une  mauiere  qui 
plaise  et  qui  instruise." 

I  am  fond  of  quoting  this  passage  from  La  Bruyere, 
because  the  subject  is  one  where  I  like  to  show  a  French- 
man on  my  side,  to  save  my  sentiments  from  being  set 
down  to  my  peculiar  dullness  and  deficient  sense  of  the 
ludicrous,  and  also  that  they  may  profit  by  that  enhance- 
ment of  ideas  when  presented  in  a  foreign  tongue,  that 
glamor  of  unfamiliarity  conferring  a  dignity  on  the  foreign 
names  of  very  common  things,  of  which  even  a  philosopher 
like  Dugald  Stewart  confesses  the  influence.  I  remember 
hearing  a  fervid  woman  attempt  to  recite  in  English  the 
narrative  of  a  begging  Frenchman  who  described  the 
violent  death  of  his  father  in  the  July  days.  The  nar- 
rative had  impressed  her,  through  the  mists  of  her  flushed 
anxiety  to  understand  it,  as  something  quite  grandly 
pathetic;  but  finding  the  facts  turn  out  meagre,  and  her 
audience  cold,  she  broke  off  saying,  "It  sounded  so  much 
finer  in  French— -j'ai  ru  le  sang  de  mon  pere,  and  so  on — I 
wish  I  could  repeat  it  in  French."  This  was  a  pardonable 
illusion  in  an  old-fashioned  lady  who  had  not  received  the 
polyglot  education  of  the  present  day;  but  I  observe  that 
even  now  much  nonsense  and  bad  taste  win  admiring 
acceptance  solely  by  virtue  of  the  French  language,  and 
one  may  fairly  desire  that  what  seems  a  just  discrimination 
should  profit  by  the  fashionable  prejudice  in  favor  of  La 
Bruyere's  idiom.  But  I  wish  he  had  added  that  the  habit 
of  dragging  the  ludicrous  into  topics  where  the  chief 
interest  is  of  a  different  or  even  opposite  kind  is  a  sign  not 
of  endowment,  but  of  deficiency.  The  art  of  spoiling  is 
within  reach  of  the  dullest  faculty:  the  coarsest  clown 
with  a  hammer  in  his  hand  might  chip  the  nose  off  every 
statue  and  bust  in  the  Vatican,  and  stand  grinning  at  the 
effect  of  his  work.  Because  wit  is  an  exquisite  product 


78  THEOPHRASTUS   SUCH. 

of  high  powers,  we  are  not  therefore  forced  to  admit  the 
sadly  confused  inference  of  the  monotonous  jester  that 
he  is  establishing  his  superiority  over  every  less  facetious 
person,  and  over  every  topic  on  which  he  is  ignorant  or 
insensible,  by  being  uneasy  until  he  has  distorted  it  in  the 
small  cracked  mirror  which  he  carries  about  with  him  as  a 
joking  apparatus.  Some  high  authority  is  needed  to  give 
many  worthy  and  timid  persons  the  freedom  of  muscular 
repose  under  the  growing  demand  on  them  to  laugh  when 
they  have  no  other  reason  than  the  peril  of  being  taken  for 
dullards;  still  more  to  inspire  them  with  the  courage  to 
say  that  they  object  to  the  theatrical  spoiling  for  them- 
selves and  their  children  of  all  affecting  themes,  all  the 
grander  deeds  and  aims  of  men,  by  burlesque  associations 
adapted  to  the  t;:ste  of  rich  fishmongers  in  the  stalls  and 
their  assistants  in  the  gallery.  The  English  people  in  the 
present  generation  are  falsely  reputed  to  know  Shakespere 
(as,  by  some  innocent  persons,  the  Florentine  mule-drivers 
are  believed  to  know  the  Divina  Commedia,  not,  perhaps, 
excluding  all  the  subtle  discourses  in  the  Purgatorio  and 
Paradiso) ;  but  there  seems  a  clear  prospect  that  in  the 
coming  generation  he  will  be  known  to  them  through  bur- 
lesques, and  that  his  plays  will  find  a  new  life  as  panto- 
mimes. A  bottle-nosed  Lear  will  come  on  with  a  monstrous 
corpulence  from  which  he  will  frantically  dance  himself 
free  during  the  midnight  storm;  Rosalind  and  Celia  will 
join  in  a  grotesque  ballet  with  shepherds  and  shepherdesses; 
Ophelia  in  fleshings  and  a  voluminous  brevity  of  grena- 
dine will  dance  through  the  mad  scene,  finishing  with  the 
famous  "attitude of  the  scissors"  in  the  arms  of  Laertes; 
and  all  the  speeches  in  "Hamlet"  will  be  so  ingeniously 
parodied  that  the  originals  will  be  reduced  to  a  mere 
memoria  technica  of  the  improver's  puns  —  premonitory 
signs  of  a  hideous  millenium,  in  which  the  lion  will  have 
to  lie  down  with  the  lascivious  monkeys  whom  (if  we  may 
trust  Pliny)  his  soul  naturally  abhors. 

I  have  been  amazed  to  find  that  some  artists  whose  own 
works  have  the  ideal  stamp,  are  quite  insensible  to  the 
damaging  tendency  of  the  burlesquing  spirit  which  ranges 
to  and  fro  and  up  and  down  on  the  earth,  seeing  no  reason 
(except  a  precarious  censorship)  why  it  should  not  appro- 
priate every  sacred,  heroic,  and  pathetic  theme  which 
serves  to  make  up  the  treasure  of  human  admiration, 
hope,  and  love.  One  would  have  thought  that  their  own 
half-despairing  efforts  to  invest  in  worthy  outward  shape 


DEBASING   THE   MORAL   CURRENCY.  79 

the  vague  inward  impressions  of  sublimity,  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  an  implicit  ideal  in  the  commonest  scenes, 
might  have  made  them  susceptible  of  some  disgust  or 
alarm  at  a  species  of  burlesque  which  is  likely  to  render 
their  compositions  no  better  than  a  dissolving  view,  where 
every  noble  form  is  seen  melting  into  its  preposterous  cari- 
cature. It  used  to  be  imagined  of  the  unhappy  mediaeval 
Jews  that  they  parodied  Calvary  by  crucifying  dogs;  if 
they  had  been  guilty  they  would  at  least  have  had  the 
excuse  of  the  hatred  and  rage  begotten  by  persecution. 
Are  we  on  the  way  to  a  parody  which  shall  have  no  other 
excuse  than  the  reckless  search  after  fodder  for  degraded 
appetites — after  the  pay  to  be  earned  by  pasturing  Circe's 
herd  where  they  may  defile  every  monument  of  that  grow- 
ing life  which  should  have  kept  them  human? 

The  world  seems  to  me  well  supplied  with  what  is 
genuinely  ridiculous:  wit  and  humor  may  play  as  harm- 
lessly or  beneficently  round  the  changing  facets  of  egoism, 
absurdity,  and  vice,  as  the  sunshine  over  the  rippling  sea 
or  the  dewy  meadows.  Why  should  we  make  our  delicious 
sense  of  the  ludicrous,  with  its  invigorating  shocks  of 
laughter  and  its  irrepressible  smiles  which  are  the  outglow 
of  an  inward  radiation  as  gentle  and  cheering  as  the 
warmth  of  morning,  flourish  like  a  brigand  on  the  robbery 
of  our  mental  wealth? — or  let  it  take  its  exercise  as  a  mad- 
man might,  if  allowed  a  free  nightly  promenade,  by  draw- 
ing the  populace  with  bonfires  which  leave  some  venerable 
structure  a  blackened  ruin  or  send  a  scorching  smoke 
across  the  portraits  of  the  past,  at  which  we  once  looked 
with  a  loving  recognition  of  fellowship,  and  disfigure  them 
into  butts  of  mockery? — nay,  worse — use  it  to  degrade  the 
healthy  appetites  and  affections  of  our  nature  as  they  are 
seen  to  be  degraded  in  insane  patients  whose  system,  all 
out  of  joint,  finds  matter  for  screaming  laughter  in  mere 
topsy-turvy,  makes  every  passion  preposterous  or  obscene, 
and  turns  tlie  hard-won  order  of  life  into  a  second  chaos 
hideous  enough  to  make  one  wail  that  the  first  was  ever 
thrilled  with  light? 

This  is  what  I  call  debasing  the  moral  currency:  lowering 
the  value  of  every  inspiring  fact  and  tradition  so  that  it 
will  command  less  and  less  of  the  spiritual  products,  the 
generous  motives  which  sustain  the  charm  and  elevation 
of  our  social  existence — the  something  besides  bread  by 
which  man  saves  his  soul  alive.  The  bread-winner  of  the 
family  may  demand  more  and  more  coppery  shillings,  or 


80  THEOPHRASTUS    SL'CH. 

assignats,  or  greenbacks  for  his  day's  work,  and  so  get  the 
needful  quantum  of  food;  but  let  that  moral  currency  be 
emptied  of  its  value — let  a  greedy  buffoonery  debase  all 
historic  beauty,  majesty,  and  pathos,  and  the  more  you 
heap  up  the  desecrated  symbols  the  greater  will  be  the  lack 
of  the  ennobling  emotions  which  subdue  the  tyranny  of 
suffering,  and  make  ambition  one  with  social  virtue. 

And  yet,  it  seems,  parents  will  put  into  the  hands  of 
their  children  ridiculous  parodies  (perhaps  with  more 
ridiculous  "  illustrations ")  of  the  poems  which  stirred 
their  own  tenderness  or  filial  piety,  and  carry  them  to  make 
their  first  acquaintance  with  great  men,  great  works,  or 
solemn  crises  through  the  medium  of  some  miscellaneous 
burlesque  which,  with  its  idiotic  puns  and  farcical  atti- 
tudes, will  remain  among  their  primary  associations,  and 
reduce  them  throughout  their  time  of  studious  preparation 
for  life  to  the  moral  imbecility  of  an  inward  giggle  at  what 
might  have  stimulated  their  high  emulation  or  fed  the 
fountains  of  compassion,  trust,  and  constancy.  One  won- 
ders where  these  parents  have  deposited  that  stock  of 
morally  educating  stimuli  which  is  to  be  independent  of 
poetic  tradition,  and  to  subsist  in  spite  of  the  finest 
images  being  degraded  and  the  finest  words  of  genius 
being  poisoned  as  with  some  befooling  drug. 

Will  fine  wit,  will  exquisite  humor  prosper  the  more 
through  this  turning  of  all  things  indiscriminately  into 
food  for  a  gluttonous  laughter,  an  idle  craving  without 
sense  of  flavors?  On  the  contrary.  That  delightful  power 
which  La  Bruyere  points  to — "le  ridicule  qui  est  quelque 
part,  il  faut  1'y  voir,  Fen  tirer  avec  grace  et  d'une  man i  ere 
qui  plaise  et  qui  instruise" — depends  on  a  discrimination 
only  compatible  with  the  varied  sensibilities  which  give 
sympathetic  insight,  and  with  the  justice  of  perception 
which  is  another  name  for  grave  knowledge.  Such  a  result 
is  no  more  to  be  expected  from  faculties  on  the  strain  to 
find  some  small  hook  by  which  they  may  attach  the  lowest 
incongruity  to  the  most  momentous  subject  than  it  is  to 
be  expected  of  a  sharper,  watching  for  gulls  in  a  great 
political  assemblage,  that  he  will  notice  the  blundering 
logic  of  partisan  speakers,  or  season  his  observation  with 
the  salt  of  historical  parallels.  But  after  all  our  psycho- 
logical teaching,  and  in  the  midst  of  our  zeal  for  educa- 
tion, we  are  still,  most  of  us,  at  the  stage  of  believing  that 
mental  powers  and  habits  have  somehow,  not  perhaps  in 
the  general  statement,  but  in  any  particular  case,  a  kind 


DEBASING  THE  MORAL  CURRENCY.         81 

of  spiritual  glaze  against  conditions  which  we  are  continu- 
ally applying  to  them.  We  soak  our  children  in  habits  of 
contempt  and  exultant  gibing,  and  yet  are  confident  that — 
as  Clarissa  one  day  said  to  me — "We  can  always  teach 
them  to  be  reverent  in  the  right  place,  you  know."  And 
doubtless  if  she  were  to  take  her  boys  to  see  a  burlesque 
Socrates,  with  swollen  legs,  dying  in  the  utterance  "of 
cockney  puns,  and  were  to  hang  up  a  sketch  of  this  comic 
scene  among  their  bedroom  prints,  she  would  think  this 
preparation  not  at  all  to  the  prejudice  of  their  emotions  on 
hearing  their  tutor  read  that  narrative  of  the  Apology 
which  has  been  consecrated  by  the  reverent  gratitude  of 
ages.  This  is  the  impoverishment  that  threatens  our  pos- 
terity:— a  new  Famine,  a  meagre  fiend  with  lewd  grin  and 
clumsy  hoof,  is  breathing  a  moral  mildew  over  the  harvest 
of  our  human  sentiments.  These  are  the  most  delicate 
elements  of  our  too  easily  perishable  civilization.  And 
here  again  I  like  to  quote  a  French  testimony.  Sainte 
Beuve,  referring  to  a  time  of  insurrectionary  disturbance, 
says :  "  Rien  de  plus  prompt  a  baisser  que  la  civilisation 
dans  des  crises  comme  celle-ci;  on  perd  en  trois  semaiues 
le  resultat  de  plusieurs  siecles.  La  civilisation,  la  vie  est 
une  chose  apprise  et  inventee,  qu'on  le  sache  bien: 
•  hirt'iiiti*  tint  qui  vitam  excoluere per  artes.'  Les  hommes 
apres  quelques  annees  de  paix  oublient  trop  cette  verite: 
ils  am  vent  a  croire  que  la  culture  est  chose  innee,  qu'elle 
est  la  meme  chose  que  la  nature.  La  sauvagerie  est  tou- 
jours  la  a  deux  pas,  et,  des  qu'on  lache  pied,  elle  recom- 
mence." We  have  been  severely  enough  taught  (if  we 
were  willing  to  learn)  that  our  civilization,  considered  as  a 
splendid  material  fabric,  is  helplessly  in  peril  without  the 
spiritual  police  of  sentiments  or  ideal  feelings.  And  it  is 
this  invisible  police  which  we  had  need,  as  a  community, 
strive  to  maintain  in  efficient  force.  How  if  a  dangerous 
"  Swing"  were  sometimes  disguised  in  a  versatile  enter- 
tainer devoted  to  the  amusement  of  mixed  audiences? 
And  I  confess  that  sometimes  when  I  see  a  certain  style  of 
young  lady,  who  checks  our  tender  admiration  with  rouge 
and  henna  and  all  the  blazonry  of  an  extravagant  expendi- 
ture, with  slang  and  bold  brusquerie  intended  to  signify 
her  emancipated  view  of  things,  and  with  cynical  mockery 
which  she  mistakes  for  penetration,  I  am  sorely  tempted, 
to  hiss  out  (i  Pet  roleuse!"  It  is  a  small  matter  to  have 
our  palaces  set  aflame  compared  with  the  misery  of  having 
our  sense  of  a  noble  womanhood,  which  is  the  inspiration 
a 


82  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

of  a  purifying  shame,  the  promise  of  life-penetrating  affec- 
tion, stained  and  blotted  out  by  images  of  repulsiveness. 
These  things  come — not  of  higher  education,  but — of  dull 
ignorance  fostered  into  pertuess  by  the  greedy  vulgarity 
which  reverses  Peter's  visionary  lesson  and  learns  to  call 
all  things  common  and  unclean.  It  comes  of  debasing  the 
moral  currency. 

The  Tirynthians,  according  to  an  ancient  story  reported 
by  Athenseus,  becoming  conscious  that  their  trick  of 
laughter  at  everything  and  nothing  was  making  them  unfit 
for  the  conduct  of  serious  affairs,  appealed  to  the  Delphic 
oracle  for  some  means  of  cure.  The  god  prescribed  a  pecul- 
iar form  of  sacrifice,  which  would  be  effective  if  they  could 
carry  it  through  without  laughing.  They  did  their  best; 
but  the  flimsy  joke  of  a  boy  upset  their  unaccustomed 
gravity,  and  in  this  way  the  oracle  taught  them  that  even 
the  gods  could  not  prescribe  a  quick  cure  for  a  long  viti- 
ation, or  give  power  and  dignity  to  a  people  who  in  a  crisis 
of  the  public  well-being  were  at  the  mercy  of  a  poor  jest. 


THE   WASP  CREDITED    WITH   THE   HONEYCOMB.         83 


XI. 

THE    WASP   CEEDITED   WITH  THE 
HONEYCOMB. 

No  man,  I  imagine,  would  object  more  strongly  than 
Euphorion  to  communistic  principles  in  relation  to  mate- 
rial property,  but  with  regard  to  property  in  ideas  he 
entertains  such  principles  willingly,  and  is  disposed  to 
treat  the  distinction  between  Mine  and  Thine  in  original 
authors])  ip  as  egoistic,  narrowing,  and  low.  I  have  known 
him,  indeed,  insist  at  some  expense  of  erudition  on  the 
prior  right  of  an  ancient,  a  mediaeval,  or  an  eighteenth 
century  writer  to  be  credited  with  a  view  or  statement 
lately  advanced  with  some  show  of  originality;  and  this 
championship  seems  to  imply  a  nicety  of  conscience  toward 
the  dead.  He  is  evidently  unwilling  that  his  neighbors 
should  get  more  credit  than  is  due  to  them,  and  in  this 
way  he  appears  to  recognize  a  certain  proprietorship  even 
in  spiritual  production.  But  perhaps  it  is  no  real  inconsist- 
ency that,  with  regard  to  many  instances  of  modern  origi- 
nation, it  is  his  habit  to  talk  with  a  Gallic  largeness  and 
refer  to  the  universe:  he  expatiates  on  the  diffusive  nature 
of  intellectual  products,  free  and  all  embracing  as  the 
liberal  air;  on  the  infinitesimal  smallness  of  individual 
origiiiatiou  compared  with  the  massive  inheritance  of 
thought  on  which  every  new  generation  enters;  on  that 
growing  preparation  for  every  epoch  through  which  certain 
ideas  or  modes  of  view  are  said  to  be  in  the  air,  and  still 
more  metaphorically  speaking,  to  be  inevitably  absorbed, 
so  that  every  one  may  be  excused  for  not  knowing  how  he 
got  them.  .Above  all,  he  insists  on  the  proper  subordi- 
nation of  the  irritable  self,  the  mere  vehicle  of  an  idea  or 
combination  which,  being  produced  by  the  sum  total  of 
the  human  race,  must  belong  to  that  multiple  entity,  from 
the  accomplished  lecturer  or  popularizer  who  transmits  it, 
to  the  remotest  generation  of  Fuegians  or  Hottentots,  how- 
ever indifferent  these  may  be  to  the  superiority  of  their 
right  above  that  of  the  eminently  perishable 'dyspeptic 
author. 

One  may  admit  thai  ouch  considerations  carry  a  pro- 


84  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

found  truth  to  be  even  religiously  contemplated,  and  yet 
object  all  the  more  to  the  mode  in  which  Euphorion  seems 
to  apply  them.  I  protest  against  the  use  of  these  majestic 
conceptions  to  do  the  dirty  work  of  unscrupulosity  and 
justify  the  non-payment  of  conscious  debts  which  cannot 
be  defined  or  enforced  by  the  law.  Especially  since  it  is 
observable  that  the  large  views  as  to  intellectual  property 
which  can  apparently  reconcile  an  able  person  to  the  use 
of  lately  borrowed  ideas  as  if  they  were  his  own,  when  this 
spoliation  is  favored  by  the  public  darkness,  never  hinder 
him  from  joining  in  the  zealous  tribute  of  recognition  and 
applause  to  those  warriors  of  Truth  whose  triumphal 
arches  are  seen  in  the  public  ways,  those  conquerors  whose 
oattles  and  "annexations"  even  the  carpenters  and  brick- 
layers know  by  name.  Surely  the  acknowledgment  of  a 
mental  debt  which  will  not  be  immediately  detected,  and 
may  never  be  asserted,  is  a  case  to  which  the  traditional 
susceptibility  to  "debts  of  honor"  would  be  suitably 
transferred.  There  is  no  massive  public  opinion  that  can 
be  expected  to  tell  on  these  relations  of  thinkers  and  in- 
vestigators— relations  to  be  thoroughly  understood  and 
felt  only  by  those  who  are  interested  in  the  life  of  ideas 
and  acquainted  with  their  history.  To  lay  false  claim  to 
an  invention  or  discovery  which  has  an  immediate  market 
value;  to  vamp  up  a  professedly  new  book  of  reference  by 
stealing  from  the  pages  of  one  already  produced  at  the 
cost  of  much  labor  and  material;  to  copy  somebody  else's 
poem  and  send  the  nanuscript  to  a  magazine,  or  hand  it 
about  among  friends  as  an  original  "effusion";  to  deliver 
an  elegant  extract  from  a  known  writer  as  a  piece  of  im- 
provised eloquence: — these  are  the  limits  within  which  the 
dishonest  pretense  of  originality  is  likely  to  get  hissed  or 
hooted  and  bring  more  or  less  shame  on  the  culprit.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  understand  the  merit  of  a  performance, 
or  even  to  spell  with  any  comfortable  confidence,  in  order 
to  perceive  at  once  that  such  pretenses  are  not  respectable. 
But  the  difference  between  these  vulgar  frauds,  these 
devices  of  ridiculous  jays  whose  ill-secured  plumes  are  seen 
falling  off  them  as  they  run,  and  the  quiet  appropriation 
of  other  people's  philosophic  or  scientific  ideas,  can  hardly 
be  held  to  lie  in  their  moral  quality  unless  we  take  im- 
punity as  our  criterion.  The  pitiable  jays  had  no  pre- 
sumption in  their  favor  and  foolishly  fronted  an  alert 
incredulity;  but  Euphorion,  the  accomplished  theorist, 
has  an  audience  who  ;.:poct  much  of  him,  and  take  it  as 


THE   WASP   CREDITED    WITH    THE    HONEYCOMB.         85 

the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  every  unusual 
view  which  he  presents  anonymously  should  be  due  solely 
to  his  ingenuity.  His  borrowings  are  no  incongruous 
feathers  awkwardly  stuck  on;  they  have  an  appropriate- 
ness which  makes  them  seem  an  answer  to  anticipation, 
like  the  return  phrases  of  a  melody.  Certainly  one  cannot 
help  the  ignorant  conclusions  of  polite  society,  and  there 
are  perhaps  fashionable  persons  who,  if  a  speaker  has 
occasion  to  explain  what  the  occiput  is,  will  consider  that 
he  has  lately  discovered  that  curiously  named  portion  of 
the  animal  frame:  one  cannot  give  a  genealogical  intro- 
duction to  every  long-stored  item  of  fact  or  conjecture  that 
may  happen  to  be  a  revelation  for  the  large  class  of  persons 
who  are  understood  to  judge  soundly  on  a  small  basis  of 
knowledge.  But  Euphorion  would  be  very  sorry  to  have 
it  supposed  that  he  is  unacquainted  with  the  history  of 
ideas,  and  sometimes  carries  even  into  minutiae  the  evidence 
of  his  exact  registration  of  names  in  connection  with  quot- 
able phrases  or  suggestions:  I  can  therefore  only  explain 
the  apparent  infirmity  of  his  memory  in  cases  of  larger 
"  conveyance  "vby  supposing  that  he  is  accustomed  by  the 
very  association  of  largeness  to  range  them  at  once  under 
those  grand  laws  of  the  universe  in  the  light  of  which 
Mine  and  Thine  disappear  and  are  resolved  into  Every- 
body's or  Nobody's,  and  one  man's  particular  obligations 
to  another  melt  untraceably  into  the  obligations  of  the 
earth  to  the  solar  system  in  general. 

Euphoriou  himself,  if  a  particular  omission  of  acknowl- 
edgment were  brought  home  to  him,  would  probably  take 
a  narrower  ground  of  explanation.  It  was  a  lapse  of 
memory;  or  it  did  not  occur  to  him  as  necessary  in  this 
case  to  mention  a  name,  the  source  being  well  known — or 
(since  this  seems  usually  to  act  as  a  strong  reason  for  men- 
tion) he  rather  abstained  from  adducing  the  name  because 
it  might  injure  the  excellent  matter  advanced,  just  as  an 
obscure  trade-mark  casts  discredit  on  a  good  commodity, 
and  even  on  the  retailer  who  has  furnished  himself  from  a 
quarter  not  likely  to  be  esteemed  first-rate.  No  doubt  this 
last  is  a  genuine  and  frequent  reason  for  the  non-acknowl- 
edgment of  indebtedness  to  what  one  may  call  impersonal 
as  well  as  personal  sources:  even  aii  American  editor  of 
school  classics,  whose  own  English  could  not  pass  for  more 
than  a  syntactical  shoddy  of  the  cheapest  sort,  felt  it 
unfavorable  to  his  reputation  for  sound  learning  that  he 
should  be  obliged  to  the  Penny  Cyclopaedia,  and  disguised 


86  THEOPHEASTUS    SUCH. 

his  references  to  it  under  contractions  in  which  Us.  Knoiul. 
took  the  place  of  the  low  word  Penny.  Works  of  this  con- 
venient stamp,  easily  obtained  and  well  nourished  with 
matter,  are  felt  to  be  like  rich  but  unfashionable  relations 
who  are  visited  and  received  in  privacy,  and  whose  capital 
is  used  or  inherited  without  any  ostentatious  insistence  on 
their  names  and  places  of  abode.  As  to  memory,  it  is 
known  that  this  frail  faculty  naturally  lets  drop  the  facts 
which  are  less  flattering  to  our  self-love — when  it  does  not 
retain  them  carefully  as  subjects  not  to  be  approached, 
marshy  spots  with  a  warning  flag  over  them.  But  it  is 
always  interesting  to  bring  forward  eminent  names,  such 
as  Patricius  or  Scaliger,  Euler  or  Lagrange,  Bopp  or  Hum- 
boldt.  To  know  exactly  what  has  been  drawn  from  them 
is  erudition  and  heightens  our  own  influence,  which  seems 
advantageous  to  mankind;  whereas  to  cite  an  author  whose 
ideas  may  pass  as  higher  currency  under  our  own  signature 
can  have  no  object  except  the  contradictory  one  of  throw- 
ing the  illumination  over  his  figure  when  it  is  important 
to  be  seen  oneself.  All  these  reasons  must  weigh  con- 
siderably with  those  speculative  persons  who  have  to  ask 
themselves  whether  or  not  Universal  Utilitarianism  requires 
that  in  the  particular  instance  before  them  they  should 
injure  a  man  who  has  been  of  service  to  them,  and  rob  a 
fellow-workman  of  the  credit  which  is  due  to  him. 

After  all,  however,  it  must  be  admitted  that  hardly  any 
accusation  is  more  difficult  to  prove,  and  more  liable  to  be 
false,  than  that  of  a  plagiarism  which  is  the  conscious 
theft  of  ideas  and  deliberate  reproduction  of  them  as 
original.  The  arguments  on  the  side  of  acquittal  are 
obvious  and  strong: — the  inevitable  coincidences  of  con- 
temporary thinking;  and  our  continual  experience  of  find- 
ing notions  turning  up  in  our  minds  without  any  label  on 
them  to  tell  us  whence  thoy  came,  so  that  if  we  are  in  the 
habit  of  expecting  much  from  our  own  capacity  we  accept 
them  at  once  as  a  new  inspiration.  Then,  in  relation  to 
the  elder  authors,  there  is  the  difficulty  first  of  learning 
and  then  of  remembering  exactly  what  has  been  wrought 
into  the  backward  tapestry  of  the  world's  history,  together 
with  the  fact  that  ideas  acquired  long  ago  reappear  as  the 
sequence  of  an  awakened  interest  or  a  line  of  inquiry 
which  is  really  new  in  us,  whence  it  is  conceivable  that  if 
we  were  ancients  some  of  us  might  be  offering  grateful 
hecatombs  by  mistake,  and  proving  our  honesty  in  a 
ruinously  expensive  manner.  On  the  other  hand,  the 


THE   WASP   CREDITED    WITH    THE   HONEYCOMB.          87 

evidence  on  which  plagiarism  is  concluded  is  often  of  a 
kind  which,  though  much  trusted  in  questions  of  erudition 
and  historical  criticism,  is  apt  to  lead  us  injuriously  astray 
in  our  daily  judgments,  especially  of  the  resentful,  con- 
demnatory sort.  How  Pythagoras  came  by  his  ideas, 
whether  St.  Paul  was  acquainted  with  all  the  Greek  poets, 
what  Tacitus  must  have  known  by  hearsay  and  systemat- 
ically ignored,  are  points  on  which  a  false  persuasion  of 
knowledge  is  less  damaging  to  justice  and  charity  than 
an  erroneous  confidence,  supported  by  reasoning  funda- 
mentally similar,  of  my  neighbor's  blameworthy  behavior 
in  a  case  where  I  am  personally  concerned.  No  premises 
require  closer  scrutiny  than  those  which  lead  to  the  con- 
stantly echoed  conclusion,  "He  must  have  known/'  or 
"He  must  have  read."  I  marvel  that  this  facility  of 
belief  on  the  side  of  knowledge  can  subsist  under  the  daily 
demonstration  that  the  easiest  of  all  things  to  the  human 
mind  is  not  to  know  and  not  to  read.  To  praise,  to  blame, 
to  shout,  grin,  or  hiss,  where  others  shout,  grin,  or  hiss  — 
these  are  native  tendencies;  but  to  know  and  to  read  are 
artificial,  hard  accomplishments,  concerning  which  the 
only  safe  supposition  is,  that  as  little  of  them  has  been 
done  as  the  case  admits.  An  author,  keenly  conscious  of 
having  written,  can  hardly  help  imagining  his  condition 
of  lively  interest  to  be  shared  by  others,  just  as  we  are 
all  apt  to  suppose  that  the  chill  or  heat  we  are  conscious 
of  must  be  general,  or  even  to  think  that  our  sons  and 
daughters,  our  pet  schemes,  and  our  quarreling  corre- 
spondence, are  themes  to  which  intelligent  persons  will 
listen  long  without  weariness.  But  if  the  ardent  author 
happen  to  be  alive  to  practical  teaching  he  will  soon  learn 
to  divide  the  larger  part  of  the  enlightened  public  into 
those  who  have  not  read  him  and  think  it  necessary  to  tell 
him  so  when  they  meet  him  in  polite  society,  and  those 
who  have  equally  abstained  from  reading  him,  but  wish  to 
conceal  this  negation,  and  speak  of  his  "incomparable 
works'"  with  that  trust  in  testimony  which  always  has  its 
cheering  side. 

Hence  it  is  worse  than  foolish  to  entertain  silent  suspi- 
cions of  plagiarism,  still  more  to  give  them  voice  when 
they  are  founded  on  a  construction  of  probabilities  which 
a  little  more  attention  to  everyday  occurrences  as  a  guide 
in  reasoning  would  show  us  to  be  really  worthless,  consid- 
ered as  proof.  The  length  to  which  one  man's  memory 
can  go  in  letting  drop  associations  that  are  vital  to  another 


88  THEOPHEASTUS    SUCH. 

can  hardly  find  a  limit.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
a  person  desirous  to  make  an  agreeable  impression  on  you 
would  deliberately  choose  to  insist  to  you,  with  some 
rhetorical  sharpness,  on  an  argument  which  you  were  the 
first  to  elaborate  in  public;  yet  any  one  who  listens  may 
overhear  such  instances  of  obliviousuess.  You  naturally 
remember  your  peculiar  connection  with  your  acquaint- 
ance's judicious  views;  but  why  should  kef  Your  father- 
hood, which  is  an  intense  feeling  to  you,  is  only  an  addi- 
tional fact  of  meagre  interest  for  him  to  remember;  and  a 
sense  of  obligation  to  the  particular  living  fellow-straggler 
who  has  helped  us  in  our  thinking,  is  not  yet  a  form 
of  memory  the  want  of  which  is  felt  to  be  disgraceful  or 
derogatory,  unless  it  is  taken  to  be  a  want  of  polite  instruc- 
tion, or  causes  the  missing  of  a  cockade  on  the  day  of 
celebration.  In  our  suspicions  of  plagiarism,  we  must 
recognize  as  the  first  weighty  probability,  that  what  we 
who  feel  injured  remember  best  is  precisely  what  is  least 
likely  to  enter  lastingly  into  the  memory  of  our  neighbors. 
But  it  is  fair  to  maintain  that  the  neighbor  who  borrows 
your  property,  loses  it  for  awhile,  and  when  it  turns  up  again 
forgets  your  connection  with  it  and  counts  it  his  own, 
shows  himself  so  much  the  feebler  in  grasp  and  rectitude 
of  mind.  Some  absent  persons  cannot  remember  the  state 
of  wear  in  their  own  hats  and  umbrellas,  and  have  no 
mental  check  to  tell  them  that  they  have  carried  home  a 
fellow-visitor's  more  recent  purchase:  they  may  be  excel- 
lent householders,  far  removed  from  the  suspicion  of  low 
devices,  but  one  wishes  them  a  more  correct  perception, 
and  a  more  wary  sense  that  a  neighbor's  iimbrella  may  be 
newer  than  their  own. 

True,  some  persons  are  so  constituted  that  the  very 
excellence  of  an  idea  seems  to  them  a  convincing  reasoit 
that  it  must  be,  if  not  solely,  yet  especially  theirs.  It  fits 
in  so  beautifully  with  their  general  wisdom,  it  lies  implic- 
itly in  so  many  of  their  manifested  opinions,  that  if  they 
have  not  yet  expressed  it  (because  of  preoccupation)  it  is 
clearly  a  part  of  their  indigenous  produce,  and  is  proved 
by  their  immediate  eloquent  promulgation  of  it  to  belong 
more  naturally  and  appropriately  to  them  than  to  the 
person  who  seemed  first  to  have  alighted  on  it,  and  who 
sinks  in  their  all-originating  consciousness  to  that  low 
kind  of  entity,  a  second  cause.  This  is  not  lunacy,  nor 
pretense,  but  a  genuine  state  of  mind  very  effective  in 
practice  and  often  carrying  the  public  with  it,  so  that  the 


THE   WASP   CEEDITED   WITH   THE   HONEYCOMB.         89 

poor  Columbus  is  found  to  be  a  very  faulty  adventurer, 
and  the  continent  is  named  after  Amerigo.  Lighter 
examples  of  this  instinctive  appropriation  are  constantly 
met  with  among  brilliant  talkers.  Aquila  is  too  agreeable 
and  amusing  for  any  one  who  is  not  himself  bent  on 
display  to  be  angry  at  his  conversational  rapine — his  habit 
of  darting  down  on  every  morsel  of  booty  that  other  birds 
may  hold  in  their  beaks,  with  an  innocent  air  as  if  it  were 
all  intended  for  his  use  and  honestly  counted  on  by  him 
as  a  tribute  in  kind.  Hardly  any  man,  I  imagine,  can 
have  had  less  trouble  in  gathering  a  showy  stock  of  infor- 
mation than  Aquila.  On  close  inquiry  you  would  probably 
find  that  he  had  not  read  one  epoch-making  book  of 
modern  times,  for  he  has  a  career  which  obliges  him  to 
much  correspondence  and  other  official  work,  and  he  is  too 
fond  of  being  in  company  to  spend  his  leisure  moments  in 
study;  but  to  his  quick  eye,  ear,  and  tongue,  a  few  preda- 
tory excursions  in  conversation  where  there  are  instructed 
persons  gradually  furnish  surprisingly  clever  modes  of 
statement  and  allusion  on  the  dominant  topic.  When  he 
first  adopts  a  subject  he  necessarily  falls  into  mistakes, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  watch  his  progress  into  fuller 
information  and  better  nourished  irony,  without  his  ever 
needing  to  admit  that  he  has  made  a  blunder  or  to  appear 
conscious  of  correction.  Suppose,  for  example,  he  had 
incautiously  founded  some  ingenious  remarks  on  a  hasty 
reckoning  that  nine  thirteens  made  a  hundred  and  two, 
and  the  insignificant  Bantam,  hitherto  silent,  seemed  to 
spoil  the  flow  of  ideas  by  stating  that  the  product  could 
not  be  taken  as  less  than  a  hundred  and  seventeen,  Aquila 
would  glide  on  in  the  most  graceful  manner  from  a  repeti- 
tion of  his  previous  remark  to  the  continuation — "All  this 
is  on  the  supposition  that  a  hundred  and  two  were  all  that 
could  be  got  out  of  nine  thirteens;  but  as  all  the  world 
knows  that  nine  thirteens  will  yield,"  etc. — proceeding 
straightway  into  a  new  train  of  ingenious  consequences, 
and  causing  Bantam  to  be  regarded  by  all  present  as  one 
of  those  slow  persons  who  take  irony  for  ignorance,  and 
who  would  warn  the  weasel  to  keep  awake.  How  should 
a  small-eyed,  feebly  crowing  mortal  like  him  be  quicker  in 
arithmetic  than  the  keen-faced,  forcible  Aquila,  in  whom 
universal  knowledge  is  easily  credible  ?  Looked  into 
closely,  the  conclusion  from  a  man's  profile,  voice,  and 
fluency  to  his  certainty  in  multiplication  beyond  the 
twelves,  seems  to  show  *a  confused  notion  of  the  way  in 


90  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

which  very  common  things  are  connected;  but  it  is  on 
such  false  correlations  that  men  found  half  their  infer- 
ences about  each  other,  and  high  places  of  trust  may 
sometimes  be  held  on  no  better  foundation. 

It  is  a  commonplace  that  words,  writings,  measures,  and 
performances  in  general,  have  qualities  assigned  them  not 
by  a  direct  judgment  on  the  performances  themselves,  but 
by  a  presumption  of  what  they  are  likely  to  be,  consider- 
ing who  is  the  performer.  We  all  notice  in  our  neighbors 
this  reference  to  names  as  guides  in  criticism,  and  all 
furnish  illustrations  of  it  in  our  own  practice;  for  check 
ourselves  as  we  will,  the  first  impression  from  any  sort  of 
work  must  depend  on  a  previous  attitude  of  mind,  and 
this  will  constantly  be  determined  by  the  influences  of  a 
name.  But  that  our  prior  confidence  or  want  of  confi- 
dence in  given  names  is  made  up  of  judgments  just  as 
hollow  as  the  consequent  praise  or  blame  -they  are  taken  to 
warrant,  is  less  commonly  perceived,  though  there  is  a 
conspicuous  indication  of  it  in  the  surprise  or  disappoint- 
ment often  manifested  in  the  disclosure  of  an  authorship 
about  which  everybody  has  been  making  wrong  guesses. 
No  doubt  if  it  had  been  discovered  who  wrote  the 
"  Vestiges/'  many  an  ingenious  structure  of  probabilities 
would  have  been  spoiled,  and  some  disgust  might  have 
been  felt  for  a  real  author  who  made  comparatively  so 
shabby  an  appearance  of  likelihood.  It  is  this  foolish 
trust  in  preposessions,  founded  on  spurious  evidence, 
which  makes  a  medium  of  encouragement  for  those  who, 
happening  to  have  the  ear  of  the  public,  give  other  people's 
ideas  the  advantage  of  appearing  under  their  own  well- 
received  name,  while  any  remonstrance  from  the  real  pro- 
ducer becomes  an  unwelcome  disturbance  of  complacency 
with  each  person  who  has  paid  complimentary  tiibutes  in 
the  wrong  place. 

Hardly  any  kind  of  false  reasoning  is  more  ludicrous 
than  this  on  the  probabilities  of  origination.  It  would  be 
amusing  to  catechise  the  guessers  as  to  their  exact  reasons 
for  thinking  their  guess  "likely";  why  Hoopoe  of  John's 
has  fixed  on  Toucan  of  Magdalen;  why  Shrike  attributes 
its  peculiar  style  to  Buzzard,  who  has  not  hitherto  been 
known  as  a  writer;  why  the  fair  Columba  thinks  it  must 
belong  to  the  reverend  Mernla;  and  why  they  are  all  alike 
disturbed  in  their  previous  judgment  of  its  value  by 
finding  that  it  really  came  from  Skunk,  whom  they  had 
either  not  thought  of  at  all,  or  thought  of  as  belonging  to 


THE    WASP   CREDITED    WITH   THE   HONEYCOMB.          01 

a  species  excluded  by  the  nature  of  the  case.  Clearly  they 
were  all  wrong  in  their  notions  of  the  specific  conditions, 
which  lay  unexpectedly  in  the  small  Skunk,  and  in  him 
alone — in  spite  of  his  education  nobody  knows  where,  in 
spite  of  somebody's  knowing  his  uncles  and  cousins,  and 
in  spite  of  nobody's  knowing  that  he  was  cleverer  than  they 
thought  him. 

Such  guesses  remind  one  of  a  fabulist's  imaginary  coun- 
cil of  animals  assembled  to  consider  what  sort  of  creature 
had  constructed  a  honeycomb  found  and  much  tasted  by 
Bruin  and  other  epicures.  The  speakers  all  started  from 
the  probability  that  the  maker  was  a  bird,  because  this  was 
the  quarter  from  which  a  wondrous  nest  might  be  expected; 
for  the  animals  at  that  time,  knowing  little  of  their  own 
history,  would  have  rejected  as  inconceivable  the  notion 
that  a  nest  could  be  made  by  a  fish;  and  as  to  the  insects, 
they  were  not  willingly  received  in  society  and  their  ways 
were  little  known.  Several  complimentary  presumptions 
wore  expressed  that  the  honeycomb  was  due  to  one  or  the 
other  admired  and  popular  bird,  and  there  was  much  flut- 
tering on  the  part  of  the  Nightingale  and  Swallow,  neither 
of  whom  gave  a  positive  denial,  their  confusion  perhaps 
extending  to  their  sense  of  identity;  but  the  Owl  hissed  at 
this  folly,  arguing  from  his  particular  knowledge  that  the 
animal  which  produced  honey  must  be  the  Musk-rat,  the 
wondrous  nature  of  whose  secretions  required  no  proof; 
and,  in  the  powerful  logical  procedure  of  the  Owl,  from 
musk  to  honey  was  but  a  step.  Some  disturbance  arose 
hereupon,  for  the  Musk-rat  began  to  make  himself  obtru- 
sive, believing  in  the  Owl's  opinion  of  his  powers,  and  feel- 
ing that  he  could  have  produced  the  honey  if  he  had 
thought  of  it;  until  an  experimental  Butcher-Bird  pro- 
posed to  anatomise  him  as  a  help  to  decision.  The  hub- 
bub increased,  the  opponents  of  the  Musk-rat  inquiring 
who  his  ancestors  were;  until  a  diversion  was  created  by 
an  able  discourse  of  the  Macaw  on  structures  generally, 
which  he  classified  so  as  to  include  the  honeycomb,  enter- 
ing into  so  much  admirable  exposition  that  there  was  a 
prevalent  sense  of  the  honeycomb  having  probably  been 
produced  by  one  who  understood  it  so  well.  But  Bruin, 
who  had  probably  eaten  too  much  to  listen  with  edification, 
grumbled  in  his  low  kind  of  language,  that  "Fine  words 
butter  no  parsnips,"  by  which  he  meant  to  say  that  there 
was  no  new  honey  forthcoming. 

Perhaps  the  audience  generally  was  beginning  to  tire, 


92  THEOPHEASTUS    SUCH.  " 

when  the  Fox  entered  with  his  snout  dreadfully  swollen, 
and  reported  that  the  beneficent  originator  in  question 
was  the  Wasp,  which  he  had  found  much  smeared  with 
undoubted  honey,  having  applied  his  nose  to  it — whence 
indeed  the  able  insect,  perhaps  justifiably  irritated  at  what 
might  seem  a  sign  of  skepticism,  had  stung  him  with  some 
severity,  an  infliction  Reynard  could  hardly  regret,  since 
the  swelling  of  a  snout  normally  so  delicate  would  corrobo- 
rate his  statement  and  satisfy  the  assembly  that  he  had 
really  found  the  honey-creating  genius. 

The  Fox's  admitted  acuteness,  combined  with  the  visi- 
ble swelling,  were  taken  as  undeniable  evidence,  and  the 
revelation  undoubtedly  met  a  general  desire  for  informa- 
tion on  a  point  of  interest.  Nevertheless,  there  was  a 
murmur  the  reverse  of  delighted,  and  the  feelings  of  some 
eminent  animals  were  too  strong  for  them:  the  Orang- 
outang's jaw  dropped  so  as  seriously  to  impair  the  vigor  of 
his  expression,  the  edifying  Pelican  screamed  and  flapped 
her  wings,  the  Owl  hissed  again,  the  Macaw  became  loudly 
incoherent,  and  the  Gibbon  gave  his  hysterical  laugh; 
while  the  Hyaena,  after  indulging  in  a  more  splenetic 
guffaw,  agitated  the  question  whether  it  would  not  be 
better  to  hush  up  the  whole  affair,  instead  of  giving  public 
recognition  to  an  insect  whose  produce,  it  was  now  plain, 
had  been  much  over-estimated.  But  this  narrow-spirited 
motion  was  negatived  by  the  sweet-toothed  majority.  A 
complimentary  deputation  to  the  Wasp  was  resolved  on, 
and  there  was  a  confident  hope  that  this  diplomatic  meas- 
ure would  tell  on  the  production  of  honey. 


"SO   YOUNG."  93 


XII. 
«SO  YOUNG." 

GANYMEDE  was  once  a  girlishly  handsome  precocious 
youth.  That  one  cannot  for  any  considerable  number  of 
years  go  on  being  youthful,  girlishly  handsome,  and  pre- 
cocious, seems  on  consideration  to  be  a  statement  as 
worthy  of  credit  as  the  famous  syllogistic  conclusion, 
''Socrates  was  mortal."  But  many  circumstances  have 
conspired  to  keep  up  in  Ganymede  the  illusion  that  he  is 
surprisingly  young.  He  was  the  last  born  of  his  family, 
and  from  his  earliest  memory  was  accustomed  to  be  com- 
mended as  such  to  the  care  of  his  elder  brothers  and 
sisters:  he  heard  his  mother  speak  of  him  as  her  youngest 
darling  with  a  loving  pathos  in  her  tone,  which  naturally 
suffused  his  own  view  of  himself,  and  gave  him  the 
habitual  consciousness  of  being  at  once  very  young  and 
very  interesting.  Then,  the  disclosure  of  his  tender  years 
was  a  constant  matter  of  astonishment  to  strangers  who 
had  had  proof  of  his  precocious  talents,  and  the  astonish- 
ment extended  to  what  is  called  the  world  at  large  when 
he  produced  "A  Comparative  Estimate  of  European 
Nations  "  before  he  was  well  out  of  his  teens.  All  coiners, 
on  a  first  interview,  told  him  that  he  was  marvelously 
young,  and  some  repeated  the  statement  each  time  they 
saw  him;  all  critics  who  wrote  about  him  called  atten- 
tion to  the  same  ground  for  wonder:  his  deficiencies  and 
excesses  were  alike  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  flattering 
tact  of  his  youth,  and  his  youth  was  the  golden  back- 
ground which  set  off  his  many  lined  endowments.  Here 
was  already  enough  to  establish  a  strong  association 
between  his  sense  of  identity  and  his  sense  of  being 
unusually  young.  But  after  this  he  devised  and  founded 
an  ingenious  organization  for  consolidating  the  literary 
interests  of  all  the  four  continents  (subsequently  including 
Australasia  and  Polynesia),  he  himself  presiding  in  the 
central  office,  which  thus  became  a  new  theatre  for  the 
constantly  repeated  situation  of  an  astonished  stranger  in 
the  presence  of  a  boldly  scheming  administrator  found  to 
be  remarkably  youn<j.  If  we  imagine  with  due  charity 


94  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

the  effect  on  Ganymede,  we  shall  think  it  greatly  to  his 
credit  that  he  continued  to  feel  the  necessity  of  being 
something  more  than  young,  and  did  not  sink  by  rapid 
degrees  into  a  parallel  of  that  melancholy  object,  a  super- 
annuated youthful  phenomenon.  Happily  he  had  enough 
of  valid,  active  faculty  to  save  him  from  that  tragic  fate. 
He  had  not  exhausted  his  fountain  of  eloquent  opinion  in 
his  "  Comparative  Estimate/'  so  as  to  feel  himself  like 
some  other  juvenile  celebrities,  the  sad  survivor  of  his  own 
manifest  destiny,  or  like  one  who  has  risen  too  early  in  the 
morning,  and  finds  all  the  solid  day  turned  into  a  fatigued 
afternoon.  He  has  continued  to  be  productive  both  of 
schemes  and  writings,  being  perhaps  helped  by  the  fact 
that  his  "Comparative  Estimate"  did  not  greatly  affect 
the  currents  of  European  thought,  and  left  him  with  the 
stimulating  hope  that  he  had  not  done  his  best,  but  might 
yet  produce  what  would  make  his  youth  more  surprising 
than  ever. 

I  saw  something  of  him  through  his  Antinous  period, 
the  time  of  rich  chestnut  locks,  parted  not  by  a  visible 
white  line,  but  by  a  shadowed  furrow  from  which  they  fell 
in  massive  ripples  to  right  and  left.  In  these  slim  days 
he  looked  the  younger  for  being  rather  below  the  middle 
size,  and  though  at  last  one  perceived  him  contracting  an 
indefinable  air  of  self-consciousness,  a  slight  exaggera- 
tion of .  the  facial  movements,  the  attitudes,  the  little 
tricks,  and  the  romance  in  shirt-collars,  which  must  be 
expected  from  one  who,  in  spite  of  his  knowledge,  was  so 
exceedingly  young,  it  was  impossible  to  say  that  he  was 
making  any  great  mistake  about  himself.  He  was  only 
undergoing  one  form  of  a  comnu  o  moral  disease:  being 
strongly  mirrored  for  himself  in  the  remark  of  others,  he 
was  getting  to  see  his  real  characteristics  as  a  dramatic 
part,  a  type  to  which  his  doings  were  always  in  correspond- 
ence. Owing  to  my  absence  on  travel  and  to  other  causes 
I  had  lost  sight  of  him  for  several  years,  but  such  a  sep- 
aration between  two  who  have  not  missed  each  other  seems 
in  this  busy  century  only  a  pleasant  reason,  when  they 
happen  to  meet  again  in  some  old  accustomed  haunt,  for 
the  one  who  has  stayed  at  home  to  be  more  communicative 
about  himself  than  he  can  well  be  to  those  who  have  all 
along  been  in  his  neighborhood.  He  had  married  in  the 
interval,  and  as  if  to  kxp  up  his  surprising  youthfulness 
in  all  relations,  he  had  taken  a  wife  considerably  older 
than  himself.  It  would  probably  have  seemed  to  him  a 


"SO   YOUNG/'  95 

disturbing  inversion  of  the  natural  order  that  any  one  very 
near  to  him  should  have  been  younger  than  he,  except  his 
own  children  who,  however  young,  would  not  necessarily 
hinder  the  normal  surprise  at  the  youthfulness  of  their 
father.  And  if  my  glance  had  revealed  my  impression  on 
first  seeing  him  again,  he  might  have  received  a  rather 
disagreeable  shock,  which  was  far  from  my  intention.  My 
mind,  having  retained  a  very  exact  image  of  his  former 
appearance,  took  note  of  unmistakable  changes  such  as 
a  painter  would  certainly  not  have  made  by  way  of  flatter- 
ing his  subject.  He  had  lost  his  slimness,  and  that  curved 
solidity  which  might  have  adorned  a  taller  man  was  a 
rather  sarcastic  threat  to  his  short  figure.  The  English 
branch  of  the  Teutonic  race  does  not  produce  many  fat 
youths,  and  I  have  even  heard  an  American  lady  say  that 
she  was  much  "disappointed"  at  the  moderate  number 
and  size  of  our  fat  men,  considering  their  reputation  in 
the  United  States;  hence  a  stranger  would  now  have  been 
apt  to  remark  that  Ganymede  was  unusually  plump  for 
a  distinguished  writer,  rather  than  unusually  young. 
But  how  was  he  to  know  this?  Many  long-standing 
prepossessions  are  as  hard  to  be  corrected  as  a  long-stand- 
ing mispronunciation,  against  which  the  direct  experi- 
ence of  eye  and  ear  is  often  powerless.  And  I  could  per- 
ceive that  Ganymede's  inwrought  sense  of  his  surprising 
youthfulness  had  been  stronger  than  the  superficial  reck- 
oning of  his  years  and  the  merely  optical  phenomena  of 
the  looking-glass.  He  now  held  a  post  under  Govern- 
ment, and  not  only  saw,  like  most  subordinate  function- 
aries, how  ill  everything  was  managed,  but  also  what  were 
the  changes  that  a  high  constructive  ability  would  dictate; 
and  in  mentioning  to  me  his  own  speeches  and  other  efforts 
toward  propagating  reformatory  views  in  his  department, 
he  concluded  by  changing  his  tone  to  a  sentimental  head 
voice  and  saying  — 

"  But  I  am  so  young;  people  object  to  any  prominence 
on  my  part;  I  can  only  get  myself  heard  anonymously,  and 
when  some  attention  has  been  drawn  the  name  is  sure  to 
creep  out.  The  writer  is  known  to  be  young,  and  things 
are  none  the  forwarder." 

"Well/'  said  I,  "youth  seems  the  only  drawback  that 
is  sure  to  diminish.  You  and  I  have  seven  years  less  of  it 
than  when  we  last  met." 

"Ah?"  returned  Ganymede,  as  lightly  as  possible,  at 
the  same  time  casting  an  observant  glance  over  me,  as  if 


96  THEOPHEASTUS    SUCH. 

he  were  marking  the  effect  of  seven  years  on  a  person  who 
had  probably  begun  life  with  an  old  look,  and  even  as  an 
infant  had  given  his  countenance  to  that  significant  doc- 
trine, the  transmigration  of  ancient  souls  into  modern 
bodies. 

I  left  him  on  that  occasion  without  any  melancholy  fore- 
cast that  his  illusion  would  be  suddenly  or  painfully  broken 
up.  I  saw  that  he  was  well  victualed  and  defended  against 
a  ten  years'  siege  from  ruthless  facts;  and  in  the  course  of 
time  observation  convinced  me  that  his  resistance  received 
considerable  aid  from  without.  Each  of  his  written  pro- 
ductions, as  it  came  out,  was  still  commented  on  as  the 
work  of  a  very  young  man.  One  critic,  finding  that  he 
wanted  solidity,  charitably  referred  to  his  youth  as  an 
excuse.  Another,  dazzled  by  his  brilliancy,  seemed  to 
regard  his  youth  as  so  wondrous  that  all  other  authors 
appeared  decrepit  by  comparison,  and  their  style  such  as 
might  be  looked  for  from  gentlemen  of  the  old  school. 
Able  pens  (according  to  a  familiar  metaphor)  appeared  to 
shake  their  heads  good-humoredly,  implying  that  Gany- 
mede's crudities  were  pardonable  in  one  so  exceedingly 
young.  Such  unanimity  amid  diversity,  which  a  distant 
posterity  might  take  for  evidence  that  on  the  point  of  age 
at  least  there  could  have  been  no  mistake,  was  not  really 
more  difficult  to  account  for  than  the  prevalence  of  cotton 
in  our  fabrics.  Ganymede  had  been  first  introduced  into 
the  writing  world  as  remarkably  young,  and  it  was  no 
exceptional  consequence  that  the  first  deposit  of  informa- 
tion about  him  held  its  ground  against  facts  which,  how- 
ever open  to  observation,  were  not  necessarily  thought  of. 
Ifc  is  not  so  easy,  with  our  rates  and  taxes  and  need  for 
economy  in  all  directions,  to  cast  away  an  epithet  or 
remark  that  turns  up  cheaply,  and  to  go  in  expensive  search 
after  more  genuine  substitutes.  There  is  high  Homeric 
precedent  for  keeping  fast  hold  of  an  epithet  under  all 
changes  of  circumstance,  and  so  the  precocious  author  of 
the  ''Comparative  Estimate"  heard  the  echoes  repeating 
"Young  Ganymede"  when  an  illiterate  beholder  at  a  rail- 
way station  would  have  given  him  forty  years  at  least. 
Besides,  important  elders,  sachems  of  the  clubs  and  public 
meetings,  had  a  genuine  opinion  of  him  as  young  enough 
to  be  checked  for  speech  on  subjects  which  they  had  spoken 
mistakenly  about  when  he  was  in  his  cradle;  and  then,  the 
midway  parting  of  his  crisp  hair,  not  common  among 
English  committee-men,  formed  a  presumption  against  the 


"SO   YOUNG."  97 

ripeness  of  his  judgment  which  nothing  but  a  speedy  bald- 
ness could  have  removed. 

It  is  but  fair  to  mention  all  these  outward  confirmations 
of  Ganymede's  illusion,  which  shows  no  signs  of  leaving 
him.  It  is  true  that  he  no  longer  hears  expressions  of  sur- 
prise at  his  youthfulness,  on  a  first  introduction  to  an 
admiring  reader;  but  this  sort  of  external  evidence  has 
become  an  unnecessary  crutch  to  his  habitual  inward  per- 
suasion. His  manners,  his  costume,  his  suppositions  of 
the  impression  he  makes  on  others,  have  all  their  former 
correspondence  with  the  dramatic  part  of  the  young  genius. 
As  to  the  incongruity  of  his  contour  and  other  little  acci- 
dents otphynque,  he  is  probably  no  more  aware  that  they 
will  affect  others  as  incongruities  than  Armida  is  conscious 
how  much  her  rouge  provokes  our  notice  of  her  wrinkles, 
and  causes  us  to  mention  sarcastically  that  motherly  age 
which  we  should  otherwise  regard  with  affectionate  rever- 
ence. 

But  let  us  be  just  enough  to  admit  that  there  may  be 
old-young  coxcombs  as  well  as  old-young  coquettes. 
7 


98  THEOPHllASTUS    SUCH. 


XIII. 

HOW  WE  COME  TO  GIYE  OUESELYES  FALSE 
TESTIMONIALS,  AND  BELIEVE  IN  THEM. 

IT  is  my  way  when  I  observe  any  instance  of  folly,  any 
queer  habit,  any  absurd  allusion,  straightway  to  look  for 
something  of  the  same  type  in  myself,  feeling  sure  that 
amid  all  differences  there  will  be  a  certain  correspondence; 
just  as  there  is  more  or  less  correspondence  in  the  natural 
history  even  of  continents  widely  apart,  and  of  islands  in 
opposite  zones.  No  doubt  men's  minds  differ  in  what  we 
may  call  their  climate  or  share  of  solar  energy,  and  a  feel- 
ing or  tendency  which  is  comparable  to  a  panther  in  one 
may  have  no  more  imposing  aspect  than  that  of  a  weasel 
in  another:  some  are  like  a  tropical  habitat  in  which  the 
very  ferns  cast  a  mighty  shadow,  and  the  grasses  are  a  dry 
ocean  in  which  a  hunter  may  be  submerged:  others  like 
the  chilly  latitudes  in  which  your  forest-tree,  fit  elsewhere 
to  prop  a  mine,  is  a  pretty  miniature  suitable  for  fancy 
potting.  The  eccentric  man  might  be  typified  by  the  Aus- 
tralian fauna,  refuting  half  our  judicious  assumptions  of 
what  nature  allows.  Still,  whether  fate  commanded  us  to 
thatch  our  persons  among  the  Esquimaux  or  to  choose  the 
latest  thing  in  tattooing  among  the  Polynesian  isles,  our 
precious  guide  Comparison  would  teach  us  in  the  first  place 
by  likeness,  and  our  clue  to  further  knowledge  would  be 
resemblance  to  what  we  already  know.  Hence,  having  a 
keen  interest  in  the  natural  history  of  my  inward  self,  I 
pursue  this  plan  I  have  mentioned  of  using  my  observa- 
tion as  a  clue  or  lantern  by  which  I  detect  small  herbage  or 
lurking  life;  or  I  take  my  neighbor  in  his  least  becoming 
tricks  or  efforts  as  an  opportunity  for  luminous  deduction 
concerning  the  figure  the  human  genus  makes  in  the 
specimen  which  I  myself  furnish. 

Introspection  which  starts  with  the  purpose  of  finding 
out  one's  own  absurdities  is  not  likely  to  be  very  mischiev- 
ous, yet  of  course  it  is  not  free  from  dangers  any  more  than 
breathing  is,  or  the  other  functions  that  keep  us  alive  and 
active.  To  judge  of  others  by  oneself  is  in  its  most  inno- 
cent meaning  the  briefest  expression  for  our  only  method 


FALSE  TESTIMONIALS.  99 

of  knowing  mankind;  yet,  we  perceive,  it  has  come  to 
mean  in  many  cases  either  the  vulgar  mistake  which 
reduces  every  man's  value  to  the  very  low  figure  at  which 
the  valuer  himself  happens  to  stand;  or  else,  the  amiable 
illusion  of  the  higher  nature  misled  by  a  too  generous  con- 
struction of  the  lower.  One  cannot  give  a  recipe  for  wise 
judgment:  it  resembles  appropriate  muscular  action,  whicli 
is  attained  by  the  myriad  lessons  in  nicety  of  balance  and 
of  aim  that  only  practice  can  give.  The  danger  of  the 
inverse  procedure,  judging  of  self  by  what  one  observes 
in  others,  if  it  is  carried  on  with  much  impartiality  and 
keenness  of  discernment,  is  that  it  has  a  laming  effect, 
enfeebling  the  energies  of  indignation  and  scorn,  whicli 
are  the  proper  scourges  of  wrong-doing  and  meanness,  and 
which  should  continually  feed  the  wholesome  restraining 
power  of  public  opinion.  I  respect  the  horsewhip  when 
applied  to  the  back  of  Cruelty,  and  think  that  he  who 
applies  it  is  a  more  perfect  human  being  because  his  out- 
leap  of  indignation  is  not  checked  by  a  too  curious  reflec- 
tion on  the  nature  of  guilt — a  more  perfect  human  being 
because  he  more  completely  incorporates  the  best  social 
life  of  the  race,  which  can  never  be  constituted  by  ideas 
that  nullify  action.  This  is  the  essence  of  Dante's  senti- 
ment (it  is  painful  to  think  that  he  applies  it  very  cruelly) — 

"  E  cortesia  f  u,  lui  esser  villano  "* 

and  it  is  undeniable  that  a  too  intense  consciousness  of 
one's  kinship  with  all  frailties  and  vices  undermines  the 
active  heroism  which  battles  against  wrong. 

But  certainly  nature  has  taken  care  that  this  danger 
should  not  at  present  be  very  threatening.  One  could 
not  fairly  describe  the  generality  of  one's  neighbors  as  too 
lucidly  aware  of  manifesting  in  their  own  persons  the 
weaknesses  which  they  observe  in  the  rest  of  her  Majesty's 
subjects;  on  the  contrary,  a  hasty  conclusion  as  to  schemes 
of  Providence  might  lead  to  the  supposition  that  one  man 
was  intended  to  correct  another  by  being  most  intolerant 
of  the  ugly  quality  or  trick  which  he  himself  possesses. 
Doubtless  philosophers  will  be  able  to  explain  how  it  must 
necessarily  be  so,  but  pending  the  full  extension  of  the 
(i  /iriori  method,  which  will  show  that  only  blockheads 
could  expect  anything  to  be  otherwise,  it  does  seem 
surprising  that  Heloisa  should  be  disgusted  at  Laura's 

•Inferno,  xxxiii,  150. 


10G  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

attempts  to  disguise  her  age,  attempts  which  she  recog- 
nizes so  thoroughly  because  they  enter  into  her  own  prac- 
tice; that  Semper,  who  often  responds  at  public  dinners 
and  proposes  resolutions  on  platforms,  though  he  has  a 
trying  gestation  of  every  speech  and  a  bad  time  for  him- 
self and  others  at  every  delivery,  should  yet  remark  piti- 
lessly on  the  folly  of  precisely  the  same  course  of  action 
in  TJbiqne;  that  Aliquis,  who  lets  no  attack  on  himself 
pass  unnoticed,  and  for  every  handful  of  gravel  against 
his  windows  sends  a  stone  in  reply,  should  deplore  the  ill- 
advised  retorts  of  Quispiam,  who  does  not  perceive  that 
to  show  oneself  angry  with  an  adversary  is  to  gratify  him. 
To  be  unaware  of  our  own  little  tricks  of  manner  or  our 
own  mental  blemishes  and,  excesses  is  a  comprehensible 
unconsciousness:  the  puzzling  fact  is  that  people  should 
apparently  take  no  account  of  their  deliberate  actions,  and 
should  expect  them  to  be  equally  ignored  by  others.  It  is 
an  inversion  of  the  accepted  order:  there  it  is  the  phrases 
that  are  official  and  the  conduct  or  privately  manifested 
sentiment  that  is  taken  to  be  real;  here  it  seems  that  the 
practice  is  taken  to  be  official  and  entirely  nullified  by  the 
verbal  representation  which  contradicts  it.  The  thief 
making  a  vow  to  heaven  of  full  restitution  and  whispering 
some  reservations,  expecting  to  cheat  Omniscience  by  an 
"aside,"  is  hardly  more  ludicrous  than  the  many  ladie« 
and  gentlemen  who  have  more  belief,  and  expect  others  to 
have  it,  in  their  own  statement  about  their  habitual  doings 
than  in  the  contradictory  fact  which  is  patent  in  the  day- 
light. One  reason  of  the  absurdity  is  that  we  are  led  by 
a  tradition  about  ourselves,  so  that  long  after  a  man  has 
practically  departed  from  a  rule  or  principle,  he  continues 
innocently  to  state  it  as  a  true  description  of  his  practice — 
just  as  he  has  a  long  tradition  that  he  is  not  an  old  gentle- 
man, and  is  startled  when  he  is  seventy  at  overhearing  him- 
self called  by  an  epithet  which  he  has  only  applied  to 
others. 

"A  person  with  your  tendency  of  constitution  should 
take  as  little  sugar  as  possible/' said  Pilulus  to  Bovis  some- 
where in  the  darker  decades  of  this  century.  It  has  made 
a  great  difference  to  Avis  since  he  took  my  advice  in  that 
matter:  he  used  to  consume  half  a  pound  a  day." 

"God  bless  me!"  cries  Bovis.  "I  take  very  little  sugar 
myself." 

"  Twenty-six  large  lumps  every  day  of  your  life,  Mr. 
Bovis,"  says  his  wife. 


FAI.-I-:  TIXMMOXIALS.  101 

"No  sucli  tiling!"  exclaims  Boris. 

"You  drop  them  into  your  tea,  coffee,  and  whisky  your- 
self, my  dear,  and  I  count  them." 

"Xonsense!"  laughs  Bovis,  turning  to  Pilulus,  that 
they  may  exchange  a  glance  of  mutual  amusement  at  a 
\vuii inn's  inaccuracy. 

Bur  she  happened  to  be  right.  Bovis  had  never  said 
inwardly  that  he  would  take  a  large  allowance  of  sugar, 
and  he  had  the  tradition  about  himself  that  he  was  a  man 
of  the  most  moderate  habits;  hence,  with  this  conviction, 
he  was  naturally  disgusted  at  the  saccharine  excesses  of 
Avis. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  this  facility  of  men  in 
believing  that  they  are  still  what  they  once  meant  to  be — 
this  undisturbed  appropriation  of  a  traditional  character 
which  is  often  but  a  melancholy  relic  of  early  resolutions, 
like  the  worn  and  soiled  testimonial  to  soberness  and 
honesty  carried  in  the  pocket  of  a  tippler  whom  the  need 
of  a  dram  lias  driven  into  peculation — may  sometimes 
diminish  the  turpitude  of  what  seems  a  flat,  barefaced 
falsehood.  It  is  notorious  that  a  man  may  go  on  uttering 
false  assertions  about  his  own  acts  till  he  at  last  believes 
in  them:  is  it  not  possible  that  sometimes  in  the  very  first 
utterance  there  may  be  a  shade  of  creed-reciting  belief,  a 
reproduction  of  a  traditional  self  which  is  clung  to  against 
all  evidence?  There  is  no  knowing  all  the  disguises  of  the 
lying  serpent. 

When  \ve  come  to  examine  in  detail  what  is  the  sane 
mind  in  the  sane  body,  the  final  test  of  completeness 
seems  to  be  a  security  of  distinction  between  what  we  have 
professed  and  what  we  have  done;  what  we  have  aimed  at 
at.  and  what  we  have  achieved;  what  we  have  invented  and 
what  we  have  witnessed  or  had  evidenced  to  us;  what  we 
think  and  feel  in  the  present  and  what  we  thought  and 
felt  in  the  past. 

I  know  tint  there  is  a  common  prejudice  which  regards 
the  habitual  confusion  of  now  and  then,  of  it  «•«.*{  and  it  /*, 
of  it  xt'i-mt'il  *<>  and  1  *hnnl<l  l\k>'  it  to  be  so,  as  a  mark  of 
high  imaginative  endowment,  while  the  power  of  precise 
statement  and  description  is  rated  lower,  as  the  attitude  of 
an  everyday  prosaic  mind.  High  imagination  is  often 
assigned  or  claimed  as  if  it  were  a  ready  activity  in  fabri- 
cating extravagances  such  as  are  presented  by  fevered 
dreams,  or  as  if  its  possessor*  were  in  that  state  of  inability 
to  give  credible  testimou'  which  would  warrant  their 


102  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

exclusion  from  the  class  of  acceptable  witnesses  in  a  court 
of  justice;  so  that  a  creative  genius  might  fairly  be  sub- 
jected to  the  disability  which  some  laws  have  stamped  on 
dicers,  slaves,  and  other  classes  whose  position  was  held 
perverting  to  their  sense  of  social  responsibility. 

This  endowment  of  mental  confusion  is  often  boasted  of 
by  persons  whose  imaginativeness  would  not  otherwise  be 
known,  unless  it  were  by  the  slow  process  of  detecting  that 
their  descriptions  and  narratives  were  not  to  be  trusted. 
Callista  is  always  ready  to  testify  of  herself  that  she  is  an 
imaginative  person,  and  sometimes  adds  in  illustration  that 
if  she  had  taken  a  walk  and  seen  an  old  heap  of  stones  on 
her  way,  the  account  she  would  give  on  returning  would 
include  many  pleasing  particulars  of  her  own  invention, 
transforming  the  simple  heap  into  an  interesting  castel- 
lated ruin.  This  creative  freedom  is  all  very  well  in  the 
right  place,  but  before  I  can  grant  it  to  be  a  sign  of 
unusual  mental  power,  I  must  inquire  whether,  on  being 
requested  to  give  a  precise  description  of  what  she  saw,  she 
would  be  able  to  cast  aside  her  arbitrary  combinations  and 
recover  the  objects  she  really  perceived  so  as  to  make  them 
recognizable  by  another  person  who  passed  the  same  way. 
Otherwise  her  glorifying  imagination  is  not  an  addition  to 
the  fundamental  power  of  strong,  discerning  perception, 
but  a  cheaper  substitute.  And,  in  fact,  I  find  on  listening 
to  Callista's  conversation,  that  she  has  a  very  lax  concep- 
tion even  of  common  objects,  and  an  equally  lax  memory 
of  events.  It  seems  of  no  consequence  to  her  whether  she 
shall  say  that  a  stone  is  overgrown  with  moss  or  with 
lichen,  that  a  building  is  of  sandstone  or  of  granite,  that 
Melibceus  once  forgot  to  put  on  his  cravat  or  that  he  always 
appears  without  it;  that  everybody  says  so,  or  that  one 
stockbroker's  wife  said  so  yesterday;  that  Philemon  praised 
Enphemia  up  to  the  skies,  or  that  he  denied  knowing  any 
particular  evil  of  her.  She  is  one  of  those  respectable 
witnesses  who  would  testify  to  the  exact  moment  of  an 
apparition,  because  any  desirable  moment  will  be  as  exact 
as  another  to  her  remembrance;  or  who  would  be  the  most 
worthy  to  witness  the  action  of  spirits  on  slates  and  tables 
because  the  action  of  limbs  would  not  probably  arrest  her 
attention.  She  would  describe  the  surprising  phenomena 
exhibited  by  the  powerful  medium  with  the  same  freedom 
that  she  vaunted  in  relation  to  the  old  heap  of  stones. 
Her  supposed  imaginativeness  is  simply  a  very  usual  lack 
of  discriminating  perception,  accompanied  with  a  less 


FALSE   TESTIMONIAL-  103 

usual  activity  of  misrepresentation,  which,  if  it  had  been 
a  little  more  intense,  or  had  been  stimulated  by  circum- 
stance, might  have  made  her  a  profuse  writer  unchecked 
by  the  troublesome  need  of  veracity. 

These  characteristics  are  tbe  very  opposite  of  such  us 
yield  a  fine  imagination,  which  is  always  based  on  a  keen 
vi>i«»n,  a  keen  consciousness  of  what  t,s,  and  carries  the 
store  of  definite  knowledge  as  material  for  the  construc- 
tion of  its  inward  visions.  Witness  Dante,  who  is  at  once 
the  most  precise  and  homely  in  his  reproduction  of  actual 
objects,  and  the  most  soaringly  at  large  in  his  imaginative 
combinations.  On  a  much  lower  level  we  distinguish  the 
hyperbole  and  rapid  development  in  descriptions  of  persons 
and  events  which  are  lit  up  by  humorous  intention  in  the 
speaker — we  distinguish  this  charming  play  of  intelligence 
which  resembles  musical  improvisation  on  a  given  motive, 
where  the  farthest  sweep  of  curve  is  looped  into  relevancy 
by  an  instinctive  method,  from  the  florid  inaccuracy  or 
helpless  exaggeration  which  is  really  something  commoner 
than  the  correct  simplicity  often  depreciated  as  prosaic. 

Even  if  high  imagination  were  to  be  identified  with 
illusion,  there  would  be  the  same  sort  of  difference  between 
the  imperial  wealth  of  illusion  which  is  informed  by  indus- 
trious submissive  observation  and  the  trumpery  stage-prop- 
erty illusion  which  depends  on  the  ill-defined  impressions 
gathered  by  capricious  inclination,  as  there  is  between  a 
good  and  a  bad  picture  of  the  Last  Judgment.  In  both 
these  the  subject  is  a  combination  never  actually  witnessed, 
and  in  the  good  picture  the  general  combination  may  be 
of  surpassing  boldness;  but  on  examination  it  is  seen  that 
the  separate  elements  have  been  closely  studied  from  real 
objects.  And  even  where  we  find  the  charm  of  ideal  ele- 
vation with  wrong  drawing  and  fantastic  color,  the  charm 
is  dependent  on  the  selective  sensibility  of  the  painter  to 
certain  real  delicacies  of  form  which  confer  the  expression 
he  longed  to  render;  for  apart  from  this  basis  of  an  effect 
perceived  in  common,  there  could  be  no  conveyance  of 
aesthetic  meaning  by  the  painter  to  the  beholder.  In  this 
sense  it  is  as  true  to  say  of  Fra  Angelico's  Coronation  of 
the  Virgin,  that  it  has  a  strain  of  reality,  as  to  say  so  of  a 
portrait  by  Rembrandt,  which  also  has  its  strain  of  ideal 
elevation  due  to  Rembrandt's  virile  selective  sensibility. 

To  correct  such  self-flatterers  as  Callista,  it  is  worth 
repeating  that  powerful  imagination  is  not  false  outward 
\ioiou,  but  intense  inward  representation,  antf  a  creative 


104  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

energy  constantly  fed  by  susceptibility  to  the  veriest 
minutiae  of  experience,  which  it  reproduces  and  constructs 
in  fresh  and  fresh  wholes;  not  the  habitual  confusion  of 
provable  fact  with  the  fictions  of  fancy  and  transient  incli- 
nation, but  a  breadth  of  ideal  association  which  informs 
every  material  object,  every  incidental  fact  with  far-reach- 
ing memories  and  stored  residues  of  passion,  bringing  into 
new  light  the  less  obvious  relations  of  human  existence. 
The  illusion  to  which  it  is  liable  is  not  that  of  habitually 
taking  duckponds  for  lilied  pools,  but  of  being  more  or 
less  transiently  and  in  varying  degrees  so  absorbed  in  ideal 
vision  as  to  lose  the  consciousness  of  surrounding  objects 
or  occurrences;  and  when  that  rapt  condition  is  past,  the 
sane  genius  discriminates  clearly  between  what  has  been 
given  in  this  parenthetic  state  of  excitement,  and  what  he 
has  known,  and  may  count  on,  in  the  ordinary  world  of 
experience.  Dante  seems  to  have  expressed  these  condi- 
tions perfectly  in  that  passage  of  the  Purgatorio  where, 
after  a  triple  vision  which  has  made  him  forget  his  sur- 
roundings, he  says — 

"  Quando  Panima  mia  torn6  di  fuori 
Alle  cose  che  son  fuor  di  lei  vere, 
lo  riconobbi  i  miei  non  falsi  error!."— (c.  xv.) 

He  distinguishes  the  ideal  truth  of  his  entranced  vision 
from  the  series  of  external  facts  to  which  his  conscious- 
ness had  returned.  Isaiah  gives  us  the  date  of  his  vision 
in  the  Temple — "the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died" — and 
if  afterward  the  mighty-winged  seraphim  were  present 
with  him  as  he  trod  the  street,  he  doubtless  knew  them 
for  images  of  memory,  and  did  not  cry  "Look!"  to  the 
passers-by. 

Certainly  the  seer,  whether  prophet,  philosopher,  scien- 
tific discoverer,  or  poet,  may  happen  to  be  rather  mad:  his 
powers  may  have  been  used  up,  like  Don  Quixote's,  in 
their  visionary  or  theoretic  constructions,  so  that  the 
reports  of  common-sense  fail  to  affect  him,  or  the  con- 
tinuous strain  of  excitement  may  have  robbed  his  mind  of 
its  elasticity.  It  is  hard  for  our  frail  mortality  to  carry 
the  burden  of  greatness  with  steady  gait  and  full  alacrity 
of  perception.  But  he  is  the  strongest  seer  who  can  sup- 
port the  stress  of  creative  energy  and  yet  keep  that  sanity 
of  expectation  which  consists  in  distinguishing,  as  Dante 
does,  between  the  cose  che  son  vere  outside  the  individual 
mind,  and  the  non  falsi  errori  which  are  the  revelations 
of  true  imaginative  power. 


THE  TOO    BEADY    WRITEB.  105 

XIV. 
THE   TOO  HEADY  WETTER. 

ONE  who  talks  too  much,  hindering  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany from  taking  their  turn,  and  apparently  seeing  no 
reason  why  they  should  not  rather  desire  to  know  his 
opinion  or  experience  in  relation  to  all  subjects,  or  at  least 
to  renounce  the  discussion  of  any  topic  where  he  can  make 
no  figure,  has  never  been  praised  for  this  industrious 
monopoly  of  work  which  others  would  willingly  have 
shared  in.  However  various  and  brilliant  his  talk  may 
be,  we  suspect  him  of  impoverishing  us  by  excluding  the 
contributions  of  other  minds,  which  attract  our  curiosity 
the  more  because  he  has  shut  them  up  in  silence.  Besides, 
>v..  03t  tired  of  a  "manner"  in  conversation  as  in  paint- 
ing, when  one  theme  after  another  is  treated  with  the 
same  lines  and  touches.  I  begin  with  a  liking  for  an  esti- 
mable master,  but  by  the  time  he  has  stretched  his  inter- 
pretation of  the  world  unbrokenly  along  a  palatial  gallery, 
I  have  had  what  the  cautious  Scotch  mind  would  call 
"enough"  of  him.  There  is  monotony  and  narrowness 
already  to  spare  in  my  own  identity;  what  comes  to  me 
from  without  should  be  larger  and  more  impartial  than 
the  judgment  of  any  single  interpreter.  On  this  ground 
even  a  modest  person,  without  power  or  will  to  shine  in 
the  conversation,  may  easily  find  the  predominating  talker 
a  nuisance,  while  those  who  are  full  of  matter  on  special 
topics  are  continually  detecting  miserably  thin  places  in 
the  web  of  that  information  which  he  will  not  desist  from 
imparting.  Nobody  that  I  know  of  ever  proposed  a  testi- 
monial to  a  man  for  thus  volunteering  the  whole  expense 
of  the  conversation. 

Why  is  there  a  different  standard  of  judgment  with 
regard  to  a  writer  who  plays  much  the  same  part  in 
literature  as  the  excessive  talker  plays  in  what  is  tradi- 
tionally called  conversation?  The  busy  Adrastus,  whose 
professional  engagements  might  seem  more  than  enough 
for  the  nervous  energy  of  one  man,  and  who  yet  finds  time 
to  print  essays  on  the  chief  current  subjects,  from  the  tri- 
lingual inscriptions,  or  the  Idea  of  the  Infinite  among  the 
prehistoric  Lapps,  to  the  Colorado  beetle  and  the  grape 
in  the  south  of  France,  is  generally  praised  if  not 


106  THEOPIIKASTUS    SUCH. 

Admired  for  the  breadth  of  his  mental  range  and  his 
gigantic  powers  of  work.  Poor  Theron,  who  has  some 
original  ideas  on  a  subject  to  which  he  has  given  years  of 
research  and  meditation,  has  been  waiting  anxiously  from 
month  to  month  to  see  whether  his  condensed  exposition 
will  find  a  place  in  the  next  advertised  programme,  but 
sees  it,  on  the  contrary,  regularly  excluded,  and  twice  the 
space  he  asked  for  filled  with  the  copious  brew  of  Adrastus, 
whose  name  carries  custom  like  a  celebrated  trade-mark. 
Why  should  the  eager  haste  to  tell  what  he  thinks  on  the 
shortest  notice,  as  if  his  opinion  were  a  needed  preliminary 
to  discussion,  get  a  man  the  reputation  of  being  a  con- 
ceited bore  in  conversation,  when  nobody  blames  the  same 
tendency  if  it  shows  itself  in  print?  The  excessive  talker 
can  only  be  in  one  gathering  at  a  time,  and  there  is  the 
comfort  of  thinking  that  everywhere  else  other  fellow- 
citizens  who  have  something  to  say  may  get  a  chance  of 
delivering  themselves;  but  the  exorbitant  writer  3un 
occupy  space  and  spread  over  it  the  more  or  less  agree- 
able flavor  of  his  mind  in  four  "mediums"  at  once,  and 
on  subjects  taken  from  the  four  winds.  Such  restless  and 
versatile  occupants  of  literary  space  and  time  should  have 
lived  earlier  when  the  world  wanted  summaries  of  all 
extant  knowledge,  and  this  knowledge  being  small,  there 
was  the  more  room  for  commentary  and  conjecture.  They 
might  have  played  the  part  of  an  Isidor  of  Seville  or  a 
Vincent  of  Beauvais  brilliantly,  and  the  willingness  to 
write  everything  themselves  would  have  been  strictly  in 
place.  In  the  present  day,  the  busy  retailer  of  other 
people's  knowledge  which  he  has  spoiled  in  the  handling, 
the  restless  guesser  and  commentator,  the  importunate 
hawker  of  undesirable  superfluities,  the  everlasting  word- 
compeller  who  rises  early  in  the  morning  to  praise  what 
the  world  has  already  glorified,  or  makes  himself  .haggard 
at  night  in  writing  out  his  dissent  from  what  nobody  ever 
believed,  is  not  simply  "gratis  anhelans,  multa  agendo 
nihil  agens" — he  is  an  obstruction.  Like  an  incompetent 
architect  with  too  much  interest  at  his  back,  he  obtrudes 
his  ill-considered  work  where  place  ought  to  have  been  left 
to  better  men. 

Is  it  out  of  the  question  that  we  should  entertain  some 
scruple  about  mixing  our  own  flavor,  as  of  the  too  cheap 
and  insistent  nutmeg,  with  that  of  every  great  writer  and 
every  great  subject? — especially  when  our  flavor  is  all  we 
have  to  give,  the  matter  or  knowledge  having  been  already 


THE   TOO    KKADY    WHITER.  107 

given  by  somebody  elee.  What  if  we  were  only  like  the 
Spanish  wine-skins  which  impress  the  innocent  stranger 
with  the  notion  that  the  Spanish  grape  has  naturally  a 
tush-  of  leather?  One  could  wish  that  even  the  greatest 
minds  should  leave  some  themes  unhandled,  or  at  least 
leave  us  no  more  than  a  paragraph  or  two  on  them  to  show 
ho\v  well  they  did  in  not  being  more  lengthy. 

Siieh  entertainment  of  scruple  can  hardly  be  expected 
from  the  young;  but  happily  their  readiness  to  mirror  the 
universe  anew  for  the  rest  of  mankind  is  not  encouraged 
by  easy  publicity.  In  the  vivacious  Pepin  I  have  often 
seen  the  image  of  my  early  youth,  when  it  seemed  to  me 
astonishing  that  the  philosophers  had  left  so  many  difficul- 
ties unsolved,  and  that  so  many  great  themes  had  raised 
no  great  poet  to  treat  them.  I  had  an  elated  sense  that  I 
should  find  my  brain  full  of  theoretic  clues  when  I  looked 
for  them,  and  that  wherever  a  poet  had  not  done  what  I 
expected,  it  was  for  want  of  my  insight.  Not  knowing 
what  had  been  said  about  the  play  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  I 
felt  myself  capable  of  writing  something  original  on  its 
blemishes  and  beauties.  In  relation  to  all  subjects  I  had  a 
joyous  consciousness  of  that  ability  which  is  prior  to 
knowledge,  and  of  only  needing  to  apply  myself  in  order 
to  master  'any  task — to  conciliate  philosophers  whose  sys- 
^tems  were  at  present  but  dimly  known  to  me,  to  estimate 
foreign  poets  whom  I  had  not  yet  read,  to  show  up  mis- 
takes in  an  historical  monograph  that  roused  my  interest 
in  an  epoch  which  I  had  been  hitherto  ignorant  of,  when 
I  should  once  have  had  time  to  verify  my  views  of  proba- 
bility by  looking  into  an  encyclopaedia.  So  Pepin;  save 
only  that  he  is  industrious  while  I  was  idle.  Like  the 
astronomer  in  Rasselas,  I  swayed  the  universe  in  my  con- 
sciousness without  making  any  difference  outside  me; 
whereas  Pepin,  while  feeling  himself  powerful  with  the 
stars  in  their  courses,  really  raises  some  dust  here  below. 
He  is  no  longer  in  his  spring-tide,  but  having  been  always 
busy  he  has  been  obliged  to  use  his  first  impressions  as  if 
they  were  deliberate  opinions,  and  to  range  himself  on  the 
corresponding  side  in  ignorance  of  much  that  he  commits 
himself  to;  so  that  he  retains  some  characteristics  of  a 
comparatively  tender  age,  and  among  th'em  a  certain  sur- 
prise that  there  have  not  been  more  persons  equal  to  him- 
self. Perhaps  it  is  unfortunate  for  him  that  he  early 
gained  a  hearing,  or  at  least  a  place  in  print,  and  was  thus 
encouraged  in  acquiring  a  iixed  habit  of  writing,  to  the 


108  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

exclusion  of  any  other  bread-winning  pursuit.  He  is 
already  to  be  classed  as  a  "general  writer,"  corresponding 
to  the  comprehensive  wants  of  the  "general  reader,"  and 
with  this  industry  on  his  hands  it  is  not  enough  for  him  to 
keep  up  the  ingenuous  self-reliance  of  youth:  he  finds 
himself  under  an  obligation  to  be  skilled  in  various 
methods  of  seeming  to  know;  and  having  habitually 
expressed  himself  before  he  was  convinced,  his  interest  in 
all  subjects  is  chiefly  to  ascertain  that  he  has  not  made  a 
mistake,  and  to  feel  his  infallibility  confirmed.  That 
impulse  to  decide,  that  vague  sense  of  being  able  to 
achieve  the  unattempted,  that  dream  of  aerial  unlimited 
movement  at  will  without  feet  or  wings,  which  were  once 
but  the  joyous  mounting  of  young  sap,  are  already  taking 
shape  as  unalterable  woody  fibre:  the  impulse  has  hard- 
ened into  "style/'  and  into  a  pattern  of  peremptory  sen- 
tences; the  sense  of  ability  in  the  presence  of  other  men's 
failures  is  turning  into  the  official  arrogance  of  one  who 
habitually  issues  directions  which  he  has  never  himself 
been  called  on  to  execute;  the  dreamy  buoyancy  of  the 
stripling  has  taken  on  a  fatal  sort  of  reality  in  written 
pretensions  which  carry  consequences.  He  is  on  the  way 
to  become  like  the  loud-buzzing,  bouncing  Bqmbus  who 
combines  conceited  illusions  enough  to  supply  several 
patients  in  a  lunatic  asylum  with  the  freedom  to  show- 
himself  at  large  in  various  forms  of  print.  If  one  who 
takes  himself  for  the  telegraphic  centre  of  all  American 
wires  is  to  be  confined  as  unfit  to  transact  affairs,  what 
shall  we  say  to  the  man  who  believes  himself  in  possession 
of  the  unexpressed  motives  and  designs  dwelling  in  the 
breasts  of  all  sovereigns  and  all  politicians?  And  I  grieve 
to  think  that  poor  Pepin,  though  less  political,  may  by- 
and-by  manifest  a  persuasion  hardly  more  sane,  for  he  is 
beginning  to  explain  people's  writing  by  what  lie  does  not 
know  about  them.  Yet  he  was  once  at  the  comparatively 
innocent  stage  which  I  have  confessed  to  be  that  of  my 
own  early  astonishment  at  my  powerful  originality;  and 
copying  the  just  humility  of  the  old  Puritan,  I  may  say, 
"But  for  the  grace  of  discouragement,  this  coxcombry 
might  have  been  mine." 

Pepin  made  for  himself  a  necessity  of  writing  (and 
getting  printed)  before  he  had  considered  whether  he  had 
the  knowledge  or  belief  that  would  furnish  eligible  matter. 
At  first  perhaps  the  necessity  galled  him  a  little,  but  it  is 
now  as  easily  borne,  nay,  is  as  irrepressible  a  habit  as  the 


THE   TOO    READY    WRITER.  109 

outpouring  of  inconsiderate  talk.  He  is  gradually  being 
condemned  to  have  no  genuine  impressions,  no  direct  con- 
sciousness of  enjoyment  or  the  reverse  from  the  quality  of 
what  is  before  him:  his  perceptions  are  continually  arrang- 
ing themselves  in  forms  suitable  to  a  printed  judgment, 
and  hence  they  will  often  turn  out  to  be  as  much  to  the 
purpose  if  they  are  written  without  any  direct  contempla- 
tion of  the  object,  and  are  guided  by  a  few  external  con- 
ditions which  serve  to  classify  it  for  him.  In  this  way  he 
is  irrevocably  losing  the  faculty  of  accurate  mental  vision : 
having  bound  himself  to  express  judgments  which  will 
satisfy  some  other  demands  than  that  of  veracity,  he  has 
blunted  his  perceptions  by  continual  preoccupation.  We 
cannot  command  veracity  at  will:  the  power  of  seeing  and 
reporting  truly  is  a  form  of  health  that  has  to  be  delicately 
guarded,  and  as  an  ancient  Rabbi  has  solemnly  said, 
"The  penalty  of  untruth  is  untruth."  But  Pepin  is  only 
a  in ild  example  of  the  fact  that  incessant  writing  with  a 
view  to  printing  carrres  internal  consequences  which  have 
often  the  nature  of  disease.  And  however  unpractical  it 
may  be  held  to  consider  whether  we  have  anything  to 
print  which  it  is  good  for  the  world  to  read,  or  which  has 
not  been  better  said  before,  it  will  perhaps  be  allowed  to 
be  worth  considering  what  effect  the  printing  may  have 
on  ourselves.  Clearly  there  is  a  sort  of  writing  which 
helps  to  keep  the  writer  in  a  ridiculously  contented  igno- 
rance; raising  in  him  continually  the  sense  of  having 
delivered  himself  effectively,  so  that  the  acquirement  of 
more  thorough  knowledge  seems  as  superfluous  as  the 
purchase  of  a  costume  for  a  past  occasion.  He  has 
invested  his  vanity  (perhaps  his  hope  of  income)  in  his 
own  shallownesses  and  mistakes,  and  must  desire  their 
prosperity.  Like  the  professional  prophet,  he  learns  to 
be  glad  of  the  harm  that  keeps  up  his  credit,  and  to  be 
sorry  for  the  good  that  contradicts  him.  It  is  hard 
enough  for  any  of  us,  amid  the  changing  winds  of  fortune 
and  the  hurly-burly  of  events,  to  keep  quite  clear  of  a 
gladness  which  is  another's  calamity;  but  one  may  choose 
not  to  enter  on  a  course  which  will  turn  such  gladness 
into  a  fixed  habjt  of  mind,  committing  ourselves  to  be 
continually  pleased  that  others  should  appear  to  be  wrong 
in  order  that  we  may  have  the  air  of  being  right. 

In  some  cases,  perhaps,  it  might  be  urged  that  Pepin 
has  remained  the  more  self -contented  because  he  has  not 
written  everything  he  believed  himself  capable  of.  He 


110  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

once  asked  me  to  read  a  sort  of  programme  of  the  species 
of  romance  which  he  should  think  it  worth  while  to 
write — a  species  which  he  contrasted  in  strong  terms  with 
the  productions  of  illustrious  but  overrated  authors  in  this 
branch.  Pepin's  romance  was  to  present  the  splendors  of 
the  Roman  Empire  at  the  culmination  of  its  grandeur, 
when  decadence  was  spiritually  but  not  visibly  imminent; 
it  was  to  show  the  workings  of  human  passion  in  the  most 
pregnant  and  exalted  of  human  circumstances,  the  designs 
of  statesmen,  the  interfusion  of  philosophies,  the  rural 
relaxation  and  converse  of  immortal  poets,  the  majestic 
triumphs  of  warriors,  the  mingling  of  the  quaint  and 
sublime  in  religious  ceremony,  the  gorgeous  delirium  of 
gladiatorial  shows,  and  under  all  the  secretly  working 
leaven  of  Christianity.  Such  a  romance  would  not  call 
the  attention  of  society  to  the  dialect  of  stable  boys,  the 
low  habits  of  rustics,  the  vulgarity  of  small  schoolmasters, 
the  manners  of  men  in  livery,  or  to  any  other  form  of 
uneducated  talk  and  sentiments;  its  characters  would  have 
virtues  and  vices  alike  on  the  grand  scale,  and  would 
express  themselves  in  an  English  representing  the  dis- 
course of  the  most  powerful  minds  in  the  best  Latin,  or 
possibly  Greek,  when  there  occurred  a  scene  with  a  Greek 
philosopher  on  a  visit  to  Rome  or  resident  there  as  a 
teacher.  In  this  way  Pepin  would  do  in  fiction  what  had 
never  been  done  before;  something  not  at  all  like  "Rienzi" 
or  "  Notre  Dame  de  Paris/'  or  any  other  attempt  of  that 
kind;  but  something  at  once  more  penetrating  and  more 
magnificent,  more  passionate  and  more  philosophical,  more 
panoramic  yet  more  select;  something  that  would  present 
a  conception  of  a  gigantic  period;  in  short,  something 
truly  Roman  and  world-historical. 

When  Pepin  gave  me  this  programme  to  read  he  was 
much  younger  than  at  present.  Some  slight  success  in 
another  vein  diverted  him  from  the  production  of  pan- 
oramic and  select  romance,  and  the  experience  of  not 
having  tried  to  carry  out  his  programme  has  naturally 
made  him  more  biting  and  sarcastic  on  the  failures  of 
those  who  have  actually  written  romances  without  appar- 
ently having  had  a  glimpse  of  a  conception  equal  to  his. 
Indeed,  I  am  often  comparing  his  rather  touchingly  in- 
flated naivete,  as  of  a  small  young  person  walking  on  tiptoe* 
while  he  is  talking  of  elevated  things,  at  the  time  when  he 
felt  himself  the  author  of  that  unwritten  romance,  with 
his  present  epigrammatic  curtness  and  affectation  of  power 


THE   TOO    READY    WRITER.  Ill 

kept  strictly  in  reserve.  His  paragraphs  now  seem  to  have 
a  bitter  smile  in  them,  from  the  consciousness  of  a  mind 
too  penetrating  to  accept  any  other  man's  ideas,  and  too 
equally  competent  in  all  directions  to  seclude  his  power  in 
any  one  form  of  creation,  but  rather  fitted  to  hang  over 
them  all  as  a  lamp  of  guidance  to  the  stumblers  below. 
You  perceive  how  proud  he  is  of  not  being  indebted  to 
any  writer;  even  with  the  dead  he  is  on  the  creditor's  side 
for  he  is  doing  them  the  service  of  letting  the  world  know 
what  they  meant  better  than  those  poor  pre-Pepinians 
themselves  had  any  means  of  doing,  and  he  treats  the 
mighty  shades  very  cavalierly. 

Is  this  fellow-citizen  of  ours,  considered  simply  in  the 
light  of  a  baptized  Christian  and  tax-paying  Englishman, 
really  as  madly  conceited,  as  empty  of  reverential  feeling, 
as  un veracious  and  careless  of  justice,  as  full  of  catch- 
penny devices  and  stagey  attitudinizing  as  on  examination 
his  writing  shows  itself  to  be?  By  no  means.  He  has 
arrived  at  his  present  pass  in  "the  literary  calling" 
through  the  self-imposed  obligation  to  give  himself  a 
manner  which  would  convey  the  impression  of  superior 
knowledge  and  ability.  He  is  much  worthier  and  more 
admirable  than  his  written  productions,  because  the  moral 
aspects  exhibited  in  his  writing  are  felt  to  be  ridiculous  or 
disgraceful  in  the  personal  relations  of  life.  In  blaming 
Pepin's  writing  we  are  accusing  th  epublic  conscience, 
which  is  so  lax  and  ill  informed  on  the  momentous  bear- 
ings of  authorship  that  it  sanctions  the  total  absence  of 
scruple  in  undertaking  and  prosecuting  what  should  be 
the  best  warranted  of  vocations. 

Hence  I  still  accept  friendly  relations  with  Pepin,  for 
he  has  much  private  amiability,  and  though  he  probably 
thinks  of  me  as  a  man  of  slender  talents,  without  rapidity 
of  cnt/jt  d'ceil  and  with  no  compensatory  penetration,  he 
meets  me  very  cordially,  and  would  not,  I  am  sure,  will- 
ingly pain  me  in  conversation  by  crudely  declaring  his 
low  estimate  of  my  capacity.  Yet  I  have  often  known 
him  to  insult  my  betters  and  contribute  (perhaps  unreflect- 
ingly) to  encourage  injurious  conceptions  of  them — but 
that  was  done  in  the  course  of  his  professional  writing, 
and  the  public  conscience  still  leaves  such  writing  nearly 
on  the  level  of  the  Merry-Andrew's  dress,  which  permits 
an  impudent  deportment  and  extraordinary  gambols  to 
one  who  in  his  ordinary  clothing  shows  himself  the  decent 
father  of  a  family. 


312  THEOPHBASTUS    SUCH. 


XV. 
DISEASES  OF  SMALL  AUTHORSHIP. 

PARTICULAR  callings,  it  is  known,  encourage  particular 
diseases.  There  is  a  painter's  colic:  the  Sheffield  grinder 
falls  a  victim  to  the  inhalation  of  steel  dust:  clergymen  so 
often  have  a  certain  kind  of  sore  throat  that  this  otherwise 
secular  ailment  gets  named  after  them.  And  perhaps,  if 
we  were  to  inquire,  we  should  find  a  similar  relation 
between  certain  moral  ailments  and  these  various  occupa- 
tions, though  here  in  the  case  of  clergymen  there  would 
be  specific  differences:  the  poor  curate,  equally  with  the 
rector,  is  liable  to  clergyman's  sore  throat,  but  he  would 
probably  be  found  free  from  the  chronic  moral  ailments 
encouraged  by  the  possession  of  glebe  and  those  higher 
chances  of  preferment  which  follow  on  having  a  good  posi- 
tion already.  On  the  other  hand,  the  poor  curate  might 
have  severe  attacks  of  calculating  expectancy  concerning 
parishioners'  turkeys,  cheeses,  and  fat  geese,  or  of  uneasy 
rivalry  for  the  donations  of  clerical  charities. 

Authors  are  so  miscellaneous  a  class  that  their  personi- 
fied diseases,  physical  and  moral,  might  include  the  whole 
procession  of  human  disorders,  led  by  dyspepsia  and  ending 
in  madness — the  awful  Dumb  Show  of  a  world-historic 
tragedy.  Take  a  large  enough  area  of  human  life  and  all 
comedy  melts  into  tragedy,  like  the  Fool's  part  by  the  side 
of  Lear.  The  chief  scenes  get  filled  with  erring  heroes, 
guileful  usurpers,  persecuted  discoverers,  dying  deliverers: 
everywhere  the  protagonist  has  a  part  pregnant  with  doom. 
The  comedy  sinks  to  an  accessory,  and  if  there  are  loud 
laughs  they  seem  a  convulsive  transition  from  sobs;  or  if 
the  comedy  is  touched  with  a  gentle  lovingness,  the  pano- 
ramic scene  is  one  where 

"  Sadness  is  a  kind  of  mirth 
So  mingled  as  if  mirth  did  make  us  sad 
And  sadness  merry.* 

But  I  did  not  set  out  on  the  wide  survey  that  would  carry 
me  into  tragedy,  and  in  fact  had  nothing  more  serious  in 
niy  mind  than  certain  small  chronic  ailments  that  come  of 

*  Two  Noble  Kinsmen. 


DISEASES   OF   SMALL    AUTHORSHIP.  113 

small  authorship.  I  was  thinking  principally  of  Vorti- 
ri'lla,  who  nourished  in  my  youth  not  only  as  a  portly  lady 
walking  in  silk  attire,  but  also  as  the  authoress  of  a  book 
entitled  "The  Channel  Islands,  with  Notes  and  an 
Appendix."  I  would  by  no  means  make  it  a  reproach  to 
her  that  she  wrote  no  more  than  one  book;  on  the  con- 
trary,  her  stopping  there  seems  to  me  a  laudable  example. 
What  one  would  have  wished,  after  experience,  was  that 
he  had  refrained  from  producing  even  that  single  volume, 
and  thus  from  giving  her  self-importance  a  troublesome 
kind  of  double  incorporation  which  became  oppressive  to 
her  acquaintances,  and  set  up  in  herself  one  of  those  slight 
chronic  forms  of  disease  to  which  I  have  just  referred. 
She  lived  in  the  considerable  provincial  town  of  Pumpiter, 
which  had  its  own  newspaper  press,  with  the  usual  divisions 
of  political  partisanship  and  the  usual  varieties  of  literary 
criticism — the  florid  and  allusive,  the  staccato  and  peremp- 
tory, the  clairvoyant  and  prophetic,  the  safe  and  pattern- 
phrased,  or  what  one  might  call  "the  many-a-long-day 
style." 

Vorticella,  being  the  wife  of  an  important  townsman, 
had  naturally  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  "  The  Channel 
Islands"  reviewed  by  all  the  organs  of  Purnpiter  opinion, 
and  their  articles  or  paragraphs  held  as  naturally  the 
opening  pages  in  the  elegantly-bound  album  prepared  by 
her  for  the  reception  of  "critical  opinions."  This  orna- 
mental volume  lay  on  a  special  table  in  her  drawing-room 
close  to  the  still  more  gorgeously-bound  work  of  which  it 
was  the  significant  effect,  and  every  guest  was  allowed  the 
privilege  of  reading  what  had  been  said  of  the  authoress 
and  her  work  in  the  "  Pumpiter  Gazette  and  Literary 
Watchman,"  the  "  Pumpshire  Post," the  "  Church  Clock," 
the  "  Independent  Monitor,"  and  the  lively  but  judicious 
publication  known  as  the  "Medley  Pie";  to  be  followed 
up,  if  he  chose,  by  the  instructive  perusal  of  the  strikingly 
confirmatory  judgment,  sometimes  concurrent  in  the  very 
phrases,  of  journals  from  the  most  distant  counties;  as  the 
"  Latchgate  Argus,"  the  "  Penllwy  Universe,"  the  "  Cock- 
aleekie  Advertiser,"  the  "Goodwin  Sands  Opinion,"  and 
the  "Land's  End  Times." 

I  had  friends  in  Pumpiter,  and  occasionally  paid  a  long 
visit  there.  When  I  called  on  Vorticella,  who  had  a 
cousinship  with  my  hosts,  she  had  to  excuse  herself 
because  a  message  claimed  her  attention  for  eight  or  ten 
minutes,  and,  handing  me  the  album  of  critical  opinions, 
8 


114  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

said,  with  a  certain  emphasis  which,  considering  my  youth, 
was  highly  complimentary,  that  she  would  really  like  me 
to  read  what  I  should  find  there.  This  seemed  a  permis- 
sive politeness  which  I  could  not  feel  to  be  an  oppression, 
and  I  ran  my  eyes  over  the  dozen  pages,  each  with  a  strip 
or  islet  of  newspaper  in  the  centre,  with  that  freedom  of 
mind  (in  my  case  meaning  freedom  to  forget)  which  would 
be  a  perilous  way  of  preparing  for  examination.  This  ad 
libitum  perusal  had  its  interest  for  me.  The  private  truth 
being  that  I  had  not  read  "The  Channel  Islands,"  I  was 
amazed  at  the  variety  of  matter  which  the  volume  must 
contain  to  have  impressed  these  different  judges  with  the 
writer's  surpassing  capacity  to  handle  almost  all  branches  of 
inquiry  and  all  forms  of  presentation.  In  Jersey  she  had 
shown  herself  an  historian,  in  Guernsey  a  poetess,  in 
Alderney  a  political  economist,  and  in  Sark  a  humorist: 
there  were  sketches  of  character  scattered  though  the 
pages  which  might  put  our  "fictionists"  to  the  blush; 
the  style  was  eloquent  and  racy,  studded  with  gems  of 
felicitous  remark;  and  the  moral  spirit  throughout  was  so 
superior  that,  said  one,  "the  recording  angel"  (who  is  not 
supposed  to  take  account  of  literature  as  such)  "would 
assuredly  set  down  the  work  as  a  deed  of  religion."  The 
force  of  this  eulogy  on  the  part  of  several  reviewers  was 
much  heightened  by  the  incidental  evidence  of  their  fas- 
tidious and  severe  taste,  which  seemed  to  suffer  consider- 
ably from  the  imperfections  of  our  chief  writers,  even  the 
dead  and  canonized:  one  afflicted  them  with  the  smell  of 
oil,  another  lacked  erudition  and  attempted  (though  vainly) 
to  dazzle  them  with  trivial  conceits,  one  wanted  to  be  more 
philosophical  than  nature  had  made  him,  another  in 
attempting  to  be  comic  produced  the  melancholy  effect  of 
a  half-starved  Merry- Andrew;  while  one  and  all,  from  the 
author  of  the  "Areopagitica  "  downward,  had  faults  of 
style  which  must  have  made  an  able  hand  in  the  "  Latch- 
gate  Argus"  shake  the  many-glanced  head  belonging 
thereto  with  a  smile  of  compassionate  disapproval.  Not 
so  the  authoress  of  "The  Channel  Islands":  Vorticella 
and  Shakespeare  were  allowed  to  be  faultless.  I  gathered 
that  no  blemishes  were  observable  in  the  work  of  this 
accomplished  writer,  and  the  repeated  information  that 
she  was  "  second  to  none  "  seemed  after  this  superfluous. 
Her  thick  octavo — notes,  appendix  and  all — was  unflag- 
ging from  beginning  to  end;  and  the  "  Land's  End  Times," 
using  a  rather  dangerous  rhetorical  figure,  recommended 


DISEASES   OF   SMALL   AUTHORSHIP.  115 

you  not  to  take  up  the  volume  unless  you  had  leisure  to 
finish  it  at  a  sitting.  It  had  given  one  writer  more  pleas- 
ure than  he  had  had  for  many  a  long  day — a  sentence 
which  had  a  melancholy  resonance,  suggesting  a  life  of  stu- 
dious languor  such  as  all  previous  achievements  of  the 
human  mind  failed  to  stimulate  into  enjoyment.  I  think 
the  collection  of  critical  opinions  wound  up  with  this  sen- 
tence, and  I  had  turned  back  to  look  at  the  lithographed 
sketch  of  the  authoress  which  fronted  the  first  page  of  the 
alburn,  \vhe7i  the  fair  original  re-entered  and  I  laid  down 
the  volume  on  its  appropriate  table. 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  of  them  ? "  said  Vorticella, 
with  an  emphasis  which  had  some  significance  uuperceived 
by  me.  "  I  know  you  are  a  great  student.  Give  me  your 
opinion  of  these  opinions." 

"They  must  be  very  gratifying  to  you/'  I  answered 
with  a  little  confusion,  for  I  perceived  that  I  might  easily 
mistake  my  footing,  and  I  began  to  have  a  presentiment  of 
an  examination  for  which  I  was  by  no  means  crammed. 

"  On  the  whole — yes,"  said  Vorticella,  in  a  tone  of  con- 
cession. "A  few  of  the  notices  are  written  with  some 
pains,  but  not  one  of  them  has  really  grappled  with  the 
chief  idea  in  the  appendix.  I  don't  know  whether  you 
have  studied  political  economy,  but  you  saw  what  I  said 
on  page  398  about  the  Jersey  fisheries?" 

I  bowed — I  confess  it — with  the  mean  hope  that  this 
movement  in  the  nape  of  my  neck  would  be  taken  as  suffi- 
cient proof  that  I  had  read,  marked  and  learned.  I  do 
not  forgive  myself  for  this  pantomimic  falsehood,  but  I 
was  young  and  morally  timorous,  and  Vorticella's  person- 
ality had  an  effect  on  me  something  like  that  of  a  powerful 
mesmeriser  when  he  directs  all  his  ten  fingers  toward  your 
eyes,  as  unpleasantly  visible  ducts  for  the  invisible  stream. 
I  felt  a  great  power  of  contempt  in  her,  if  I  did  not  come 
up  to  her  expectations. 

"Well,"  she  resumed,  "you  observe  that  not  one  of 
them  has  taken  up  that  argument.  But  I  hope  I  con- 
vinced you  about  the  drag-nets?  " 

Here  was  a  judgment  on  me.  Orientally  speaking,  I 
had  lifted  up  my  foot  on  the  steep  descent  of  falsity  and 
w;i>  compelled  to  set  it  down  on  a  lower  level.  "  I  should 
think  you  must  be  right,"  said  I,  inwardly  resolving  that 
on  the  next  topic  I  would  tell  the  truth. 

"I  knnir  that  I  am  right,"  said  Vorticella.  "The  fact 
is  that  no  critic  in  this  town  is  fit  to  meddle  with  such 


116  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

subjects,  unless  it  be  Volvox,  and  he,  with  all  his  com- 
mand of  language,  is  very  superficial.  It  is  Volvox  who 
writes  in  the  'Monitor/  I  hope  you  noticed  how  he  con- 
tradicts himself?" 

My  resolution,  helped  by  the  equivalence  of  dangers, 
stoutly  prevailed,  and  I  said  "No." 

"No!  I  am  surprised.  He  is  the  only  one  who  finds 
fault  with  me.  He  is  a  Dissenter,  you  know.  The 
'Monitor 'is  the  Dissenters' organ,  but  my  husband  has 
been  so  useful  to  them  in  municipal  affairs  that  they 
would  not  venture  to  run  my  book  down;  they  feel 
obliged  to  tell  the  truth  about  me.  Still  Volvox  betrays 
himself.  After  praising  me  for  my  penetration  and  accu- 
racy, he  presently  says  I  have  allowed  myself  to  be  imposed 
upon  and  have  let  my  active  imagination  run  away  with 
me.  That  is  like  his  dissenting  impertinence.  Active  my 
imagination  may  be,  but  I  have  it  under  control.  Little 
Vibrio,  who  writes  the  playful  notice  in  the  'Medley  Pie,' 
has  a  clever  hit  at  Volvox  in  that  passage  about  the  steeple- 
chase of  imagination,  where  the  loser  wants  to  make  it 
appear  that  the  winner  was  only  run  away  with.  But  if 
you  did  not  notice  Volvox's  self-contradiction  you  would 
not  see  the  point,"  added  Vorticella,  with  rather  a  chilling 
intonation.  "  Or  perhaps  you  did  not  read  the  'Medley 
Pie'  notice?  That  is  a  pity.  Do  take  up  the  book  again. 
Vibrio  is  a  poor  little  tippling  creature  but,  as  Mr.  Car- 
lyle  would  say,  he  has  an  eye,  and  he  is  always  lively." 

I  did  take  up  the  book  again  and  read  as  demanded. 

"It  is  very  ingenins,"  said  I,  really  appreciating  the 
difficulty  of  being  lively  in  this  connection:  it  seemed  even 
more  wonderful  than  that  a  Vibrio  should  have  an  eye. 

"You  are  probably  surprised  to  see  no  notices  from  the 
London  press,"  said  Vorticella.  "I  have  one — a  very 
remarkable  one.  But  I  reserve  it  until  the  others  have 
spoken,  and  then  I  shall  introduce  it  to  wind  up.  I  shnll 
have  them  reprinted,  of  course,  and  inserted  in  future 
copies.  This  from  the  'Candelabrum'  is  only  eight  lines 
in  length,  but  full  of  venom.  It  calls  my  style  dull  and 
pompous.  I  think  that  will  tell  its  own  tale,  placed  after 
the  other  critiques." 

"  People's  impressions  are  so  different,"  said  I.  "  Some 
persons  find  'Don  Quixote'  dull." 

"Yes,"  said  Vorticella,  in  emphatic  chest  tones,  "dull- 
ness is  a  matter  of  <>]>!:. \m;  but  pompous!  That  I  never 
was  and  never  could  bu  perhaps  he  means  that  my  mat- 


DISEASES   OF   SMALL   AUTHORSHIP.  117 

ter  is  too  important  for  his  taste;  and  I  have  no  objection 
to  that.  I  did  not  intend  to  be  trivial.  I  should  just  like 
to  read  you  that  passage  about  the  drag-nets,  because  I 
could  make  it  clearer  to  you." 

A  second  (less  ornamental)  copy  was  at  her  elbow  and 
was  already  opened,  when,  to  my  great  relief,  another 
guest  was  announced,  and  I  was  able  to  take  my  leave 
without  seeming  to  run  away  from  "The  Channel  Islands/' 
though  not  without  being  compelled  to  carry  with  me  the 
loan  of  "the  marked  copy,"  which  I  was  to  find  advan- 
tageous in  a  re-perusal  of  the  appendix,  and  was  only 
requested  to  return  before  my  departure  from  Pumpiter. 
Looking  into  the  volume  now  with  some  curiosity,  I  found 
it  a  very  ordinary  combination  of  the  commonplace  and 
ambitious,  one  of  those  books  which  one  might  imagine  to 
have  been  written  under  the  old  Grub  Street  coercion  of 
hunger  and  thirst,  if  they  were  not  known  beforehand  to 
be  the  gratuitous  productions  of  ladies  and  gentlemen 
whose  circumstances  might  be  called  altogether  easy,  but 
for  an  uneasy  vanity  that  happened  to  have  been  directed 
toward  authorship.  Its  importance  was  that  of  a  polypus, 
tumor,  fungus,  or  other  erratic  outgrowth,  noxious  and 
disfiguring  in  its  effect  on  the  individual  organism  which 
nourishes  it.  Poor  Vorticella  might  not  have  been  more 
wearisome  on  a  visit  than  the  majority  of  her  neighbors, 
but  for  this  disease  of  magnified  self-importance  belonging 
to  small  authorship.  I  understand  that  the  chronic  com- 
plaint of  "The  Channel  Islands"  never  left  her.  As  the 
years  went  on  and  the  publication  tended  to  vanish  in  the 
distance  for  her  neighbor's  memory,  she  was  still  bent  on 
dragging  it  to  the  foreground,  and  her  chief  interest  in 
new  acquaintances  was  the  possibility  of  lending  them  her 
book,  entering  into  all  details  concerning  it,  and  request- 
ing them  to  read  her  album  of  "critical  opinions."  This 
really  made  her  more  tiresome  than  Gregarina,  whose  dis- 
tinction was  that  she  had  had  cholera,  and  who  did  not 
feel  herself  in  her  true  position  with  strangers  until  they 
knew  it. 

My  experience  with  Vorticella  led  me  for  a  long  time 
into  the  false  supposition  that  this  sort  of  fungous  disfig- 
uration, which  makes  Self  disagreeably  larger,  was  most 
common  to  the  female  sex;  but  I  presently  found  that  here 
too  the  male  could  assert  his  superiority  and  show  a  more 
vigorous  boredom.  I  have  known  a  man  with  a  single 
pamphlet  containing  an  assurance  that  somebody  else  wag 


118  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

wrong,  together  with  a  few  approved  quotations,  produce 
a  more  powerful  effect  of  shuddering  at  his  approach  than 
ever  Vorticella  did  with  her  varied  octavo  volume,  includ- 
ing notes  and  appendix.  Males  of  more  than  one  nation 
recur  to  my  memory  who  produced  from  their  pocket  oii 
the  slightest  encouragement  a  small  pink  or  buff  duodecimo 
pamphlet,  wrapped  in  silver  paper,  as  a  present  held  ready 
for  an  intelligent  reader.  "A  mode  of  propagandism," 
you  remark  in  excuse;  "  they  wished  to  spread  some  useful 
corrective  doctrine."  Not  necessarily:  the  indoctrination 
aimed  at  was  perhaps  to  convince  you  of  their  own  talents 
by  the  sample  of  an  "  Ode  on  Shakespeare's  Birthday/'  or 
a  translation  from  Horace. 

Vorticella  may  pair  off  with  Monas,  who  had  also  written 
his  one  book  —  "Here  and  There;  or,  a  Trip  form  Truro 
to  Transylvania"  —  and  not  only  carried  it  in  his  port- 
manteau when  he  went  on  visits,  but  took  the  earliest 
opportunity  of  depositing  it  in  the  drawing-room,  and  after- 
ward would  enter  to  look  for  it,  as  if  under  pressure  of  a 
need  for  reference,  begging  the  lady  of  the  house  to  tell 
him  whether  she  had  seen  "a  small  volume  bound  in  red." 
One  hostess  at  last  ordered  it  to  be  carried  into  his  bedroom 
to  save  his  time;  but  it  presently  reappeared  in  his  hands, 
and  was  again  left  with  inserted  slips  of  paper  on  the 
drawing-room  table. 

Depend  upon  it,  vanity  is  human,  native  alike  to  men 
and  women;  only  in  the  male  it  is  of  denser  texture,  less 
volatile,  so  that  it  less  immediately  informs  you  -of  its 
presence,  but  is  more  massive  and  capable  of  knocking 
you  down  if  you  come  into  collision  with  it;  while  in 
women  vanity  lays  by  its  small  revenges  as  in  a  needle-case 
always  at  hand.  The  difference  is  in  muscle  and  finger- 
tips, in  traditional  habits  and  mental  perspective,  rather 
than  in  the  original  appetite  of  vanity.  It  is  an  approved 
method  now  to  explain  ourselves  by  a  reference  to  the 
races  as  little  like  us  as  possible,  which  leads  me  to  observe 
that  in  Fiji  the  men  use  the  most  elaborate  hair-dressing, 
and  that  wherever  tattooing  is  in  vogue  the  male  expects  to 
carry  off  the  prize  of  admiration  for  pattern  and  workman- 
ship. Arguing  analogically,  and  looking  for  this  tendency 
of  the  Fijian  or  Hawaian  male  in  the  eminent  European, 
we  must  suppose  that  it  exhibits  itself  under  the  forms  of 
civilized  apparel;  and  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  esti- 
mate passionate  effort  by  the  effect  it  produces  on  our 
perception  or  understanding.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  man 


DISEASES   OF   SMALL   AUTHORSHIP.  119 

may  have  concentrated  no  less  will  and  expectation  ou  his 
wristbands,  gaiters,  and  the  shape  of  his  nat-brim,  or  an 
appearance  which  impresses  you  as  that  of  the  modern 
"swell,"  than  the  Ojibbeway  on  an  ornamentation  which 
seems  to  us  much  more  elaborate.  In  what  concerns  the 
search  for  admiration  at  least,  it  is  not  true  that  the  effect 
is  equal  to  the  cause  and  resembles  it.  The  cause  of  a  flat 
curl  on  the  masculine  forehead,  such  as  might  be  seen  when 
George  the  Fourth  was  king,  must  have  been  widely 
different  in  quality  and  intensity  from  the  impression 
made  by  that  small  scroll  of  hair  on  the  organ  of  the 
beholder.  Merely  to  maintain  an  attitude  and  gait  which 
I  notice  in  certain  club  men,  and  especially  an  inflation  of 
the  chest  accompanying  very  small  remarks,  there  goes,  I 
urn  convinced,  an  expenditure  of  psychical  energy  little 
appreciated  by  the  multitude — a  mental  vision  of  Self  and 
deeply  impressed  beholders  which  is  quite  without  anti- 
type in  what  we  call  the  effect  produced  by  that  hidden 
process. 

No!  there  is  no  need  to  admit  that  women  would  carry 
away  the  prize  of  vanity  in  a  competition  where  differences 
of  custom  were  fairly  considered.  A  man  cannot  show  his 
vanity  in  a  tight  skirt  which  forces  him  to  walk  sideways 
down  the  staircase;  but  let  the  match  be  between  the 
respective  vanities  of  largest  beard  and  tightest  skirt,  and 
here  too  the  battle  would  be  to  the  strong. 


12C  THEOPHEASTUS   SUCH. 


XVI. 
MOKAL  SWINDLEKS. 

IT  is  a  familiar  example  of  irony  in  the  degradation  of 
words  that  "  what  a  man  is  worth"  has  come  to  mean  how 
much  money  he  possesses;  but  there  seems  a  deeper  and 
more  melancholy  irony  in  the  shrunken  meaning  that 
popular  or  polite  speech  assigns  to  "morality"  and 
"morals."  The  poor  part  these  words  are  made  to  play 
recalls  the  fate  of  those  pagan  divinities  who,  after  being 
understood  to  rule  the  powers  of  the  air  and  the  destinies 
of  men,  came  down  to  the  level  of  insignificant  demons, 
or  were  even  made  a  farcical  show  for  the  amusement  of 
the  multitude. 

Talking  to  Melissa  in  a  time  of  commercial  trouble, 
I  found  her  disposed  to  speak  pathetically  of  the  disgrace 
which  had  fallen  on  Sir  Gavial  Mantrap,  because  of  his 
conduct  in  relation  to  the  Eocene  Mines,  and  to  other 
companies  ingeniously  devised  by  him  for  the  punishment 
of  ignorance  in  people  of  small  means:  a  disgrace  by  which 
the  poor  titled  gentleman  was  actually  reduced  to  live  in 
comparative  obscurity  on  his  wife's  settlement  of  one  or 
two  hundred  thousand  in  the  consols. 

"  Surely  your  pity  is  misapplied,"  said  I,  rather  dubi- 
ously, for  I  like  the  comfort  of  trusting  that  a  correct 
moral  judgment  is  the  strong  point  in  woman  (seeing  that 
she  has  a  majority  of  about  a  million  in  our  islaiids),  and 
I  imagined  that  Melissa  might  have  some  unexpressed 
grounds  for  her  opinion.  "  I  should  have  thought  you 
would  rather  be  sorry  for  Mantrap's  victims — the  widows, 
spinsters,  and  hard-working  fathers  whom  his  unscru- 
pulous haste  to  make  himself  rich  has  cheated  of  all  their 
savings,  while  he  is  eating  well,  lying  softly,  and  after 
impudently  justifying  himself  before  the  public,  is  per- 
haps joining  in  the  General  Confession  with  a  sense  that 
he  is  an  acceptable  object  in  the  sight  of  God,  though 
decent  men  refuse  to  meet  him." 

"  Oh,  all  that  about  the  Companies,  I  know,  was  most 
unfortunate.  In  commerce  people  are  led  to  do  so  many 
things,  and  he  might  not  know  exactly  how  everything 


MORAL   SWINDLERS.  121 

would  turn  out.  But  Sir  Gavial  made  a  good  use  of  his 
money,  and  he  is  a  thoroughly  moral  man. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  a  thoroughly  moral  man?" 
said  1. 

"Oh,  I  suppose  every  one  means  the  same  by  that," 
said  Melissa,  with  a  slight  air  of  rebuke.  "  Sir  Gavial  is 
an  excellent  family  man — quite  blameless  there;  and  so 
charitable  round  his  place  at  Tiptop.  Very  different  from 
Mr.  Barabbas,  whose  life,  my  husband  tells  me,  is  most 
objectionable,  with  actresses  and  that  sort  of  thing.  I 
think  a  man's  morals  should  make  a  difference  to  us.  I'm 
not  sorry  for  Mr.  Barabbas,  but  /  am  sorry  for  Sir  Gavial 
Mantrap." 

I  will  not  repeat  my  answer  to  Melissa,  for  I  fear  it  was 
offensively  brusque,  my  opinion  being  that  Sir  Gavial  was 
the  more  pernicious  scoundrel  of  the  two,  since  his  name 
for  virtue  served  as  an  effective  part  of  a  swindling  appa- 
ratus; and  perhaps  I  hinted  that  to  call  such  a  man  moral 
showed  rather  a  silly  notion  of  human  affairs.  In  fact,  I 
had  an  angry  wish  to  be  instructive,  and  Melissa,  as  will 
sometimes  happen,  noticed  my  anger  without  appropriating 
my  instruction,  for  I  have  since  heard  that  she  speaks  of 
me  as  rather  violent-tempered,  and  not  over  strict  in  my 
views  of  morality. 

I  wish  that  this  narrow  use  of  words  which  are  wanted 
in  their  full  meaning  were  confined  to  women  like  Melissa. 
Seeing  that  Morality  and  Morals  under  their  alias  of 
Ethics  are  the  subject  of  voluminous  discussion,  and  their 
true  basis  a  pressing  matter  of  dispute — seeing  that  the 
most  famous  book  ever  written  on  Ethics,  and  forming  a 
chief  study  in  our  colleges,  allies  ethical  with  political 
science,  or  that  which  treats  of  the  constitution  and  pros- 
perity of  States,  one  might  expect  that  educated  men 
would  find  reason  to  avoid  a  perversion  of  language  which 
lends  itself  to  no  wider  view  of  life  than  that  of  village 
gossips.  Yet  I  find  even  respectable  historians  of  our  own 
and  of  foreign  countries,  after  showing  that  a  king  was 
treacherous,  rapacious,  and  ready  to  sanction  gross  breaches 
in  the  administration  of  justice,  end  by  praising  him  for 
his  pure  moral  character,  by  which  one  must  suppose  them 
to  mean  that  he  was  not  lewd  nor  debauched,  not  the  Euro- 
pean twin  of  the  typical  Indian  potentate  whom  Macaulay 
describes  as  passing  his  life  in  chewing  bang  and  fondling 
dancing-girls.  And  since  we  are  sometimes  told  of  such 
maleficent  kings  that  they  were  religious,  we  arrive  at  the 


122  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

curious  result  that  the  most  serious  wide-reaching  duties  of 
man  lie  quite  outside  both  Morality  and  Eeligion — the  one 
of  these  consisting  in  not  keeping  mistresses  (and  perhaps 
not  drinking  too  much),  and  the  other  in  certain  ritual 
and  spiritual  transactions  with  God. which  can  be  carried 
on  equally  well  side  by  side  with  the  basest  conduct  toward 
men.  With  such  a  classification  as  this  it  is  no  wonder,, 
considering  the  strong  reaction  of  language  on  thought, 
that  many  minds,  dizzy  with  indigestion  of  recent  science 
and  philosophy,  are  far  to  seek  for  the  grounds  of  social 
duty,  and  without  entertaining  any  private  intention  of 
committing  a  perjury  which  would  ruin  an  innocent  man, 
or  seeking  gain  by  supplying  bad  preserved  meats  to  our 
navy,  feel  themselves  speculatively  obliged  to  inquire  why 
they  should  not  do  so,  and  are  inclined  to  measure  their 
intellectual  subtlety  by  their  dissatisfaction  with  all  answers 
to  this  "Why?"  It  is  of  little  use  to  theorize  in  ethics 
while  our  habitual  phraseology  stamps  the  larger  part  of 
our  social  duties  as  something  that  lies  aloof  from  the 
deepest  needs  and  affections  of  our  nature.  The  informal 
definitions  of  popular  language  are  the  only  medium 
through  which  theory  really  affects  the  mass  of  minds  even 
among  the  nominally  educated;  and  when  a  man  whose 
business  hours,  the  solid  part  of  every  day,  are  spent  in 
an  unscrupulous  course  of  public  or  private  action  which 
has  every  calculable  chance  of  causing  widespread  injury 
and  misery,  can  be  called  moral  because  he  conies  home  to 
dine  with  his  wife  and  children  and  cherishes  the  happi- 
ness of  his  own  hearth,  the  augury  is  not  good  for  the  use 
of  high  ethical  and  theological  disputation. 

Not  for  one  moment  would  one  willingly  lose  sight  of 
the  truth  that  the  relation  of  the  sexes  and  the  primary 
ties  of  kinship  are  the  deepest  roots  of  human  well-being, 
but  to  make  them  by  themselves  the  equivalent  of  morality 
is  to  cut  off  the  channels  of  feeling  through  which  they 
are  the  feeders  of  that  well  being.  They  are  the  original 
fountains  of  a  sensibility  to  the  claims  of  others,  which  is 
the  bond  of  societies;  but  being  necessarily  in  the  first 
instance  a  private  good,  there  is  always  the  danger  that 
individual  selfishness  will  see  in  them  only  the  best  part  of 
its  own  gain;  just  as  knowledge,  navigation,  commerce, 
and  all  the  conditions  which  are  of  a  nature  to  awaken 
men's  consciousness  of  their  mutual  dependence  and  to 
make  the  world  one  great  society,  are  the  occasions  of 
selfish,  unfair  action,  of  war  and  oppression,  so  long  as 


MORAL  SWINDLERS.  123 

the  public  conscience  or  chief  force  of  feeling  and  opinion 
is  not  uniform  and  strong  enough  in  its  insistence  on  what 
is  demanded  by  the  general  welfare.  And  among  the 
influences  that  must  retard  a  right  public  judgment,  the 
degredation  of  words  which  involve  praise  and  blame  will 
be  reckoned  worth  protesting  against  by  every  mature 
observer.  To  rob  words  of  half  their  meaning,  while  they 
retain  their  dignity  as  qualifications,  is  like  allowing  to 
men  who  have  lost  half  their  faculties  the  same  high  and 
perilous  command  which  they  won  in  their  time  of  vigor; 
or  like  selling  food  and  seeds  after  fraudulently  abstract- 
ing their  best  virtues:  in  each  case  what  ought  to  be 
beneficently  strong  is  fatally  enfeebled,  if  not  empoisoned, 
until  we  have  altered  our  dictionaries  and  have  found 
some  other  word  than  morality  to  stand  in  popular  use  for 
the  duties  of  man  to  man,  let  us  refuse  to  accept  as  moral 
the  contractor  who  enriches  himself  by  using  large 
machinery  to  make  pasteboard  soles  pass  as  leather  for  the 
feet  of  unhappy  conscripts  fighting  at  miserable  odds 
against  invaders:  let  us  rather  call  him  a  miscreant, 
though  he  were  the  tenderest,  most  faithful  of  husbands, 
and  contend  that  his  own  experience  of  home  happiness 
makes  his  reckless  infliction  of  suffering  on  others  all  the 
more  atrocious.  •  Let  us  refuse  to  accept  as  moral  any 
political  leader  who  should  allow  his  conduct  in  relation  to 
great  issues  to  be  determined  by  egoistic  passion,  and 
boldly  say  that  he  would  be  less  immoral  even  though  he 
were  as  lax  in  his  personal  habits  as  Sir  Robert  "Walpole, 
if  at  the  same  time  his  sense  of  the  public  welfare  were 
supreme  in  his  mind,  quelling  all  pettier  impulses  beneath 
a  magnanimous  impartiality.  And  though  we  were  to 
find  among  that  class  of  journalists  who  live  by  recklessly 
reporting  injurious  rumors,  insinuating  the  blackest 
motives  in  opponents,  descanting  at  large  and  with  an  air 
of  infallibility  on  dreams  which  they  both  find  and  inter- 
pret, and  stimulating  bad  feeling  between  nations  by 
abusive  writing  which  is  as  empty  of  real  conviction  as  the 
rage  of  a  pantomime  king,  and  would  be  ludicrous  if  its 
effects  did  not  make  it  appear  diabolical — though  we  were 
to  find  among  these  a  man  who  was  benignancy  itself  in 
his  own  circle,  a  healer  of  private  differences,  a  soother  in 
private  calamities,  let  us  pronounce  him  nevertheless  fla- 
grantly immoral,  a  root  of  hideous  cancer  in  the  common- 
wealth, turning  the  channels  of  instruction  into  feeders  of 
social  and  political  disease. 


124  THEOPIIRASTUS    SUCH. 

In  opposite  ways  one  sees  bad  effects  likely  to  be 
encouraged  by  this  narrow  use  of  the  word  morals,  shut- 
ting out  from  its  meaning  half  those  actions  of  a  man's 
life  which  tell  momentously  on  the  well-being  of  his  fel- 
low-citizens, and  on  the  preparation  of  a  future  for  the 
children  growing  up  around  him.  Thoroughness  of  work- 
manship, care  in  the  execution  of  every  task  undertaken, 
as  if  it  were  the  acceptance  of  a  trust  which  it  would  be  a 
breach  of  faith  not  to  discharge  well,  is  a  form  of  duty  so 
momentous  that  if  it  were  to  die  out  from  the  feeling  and 
practice  of  a  people,  all  reforms  of  institutions  would  be 
helpless  to  create  national  prosperity  and  national  happi- 
ness. Do  we  desire  to  see  public  spirit  penetrating  all 
classes  of  the  community  and  affecting  every  man's  con- 
duct, so  that  he  shall  make  neither  the  saving  of  his  soul 
nor  any  other  private  saving  an  excuse  for  indifference  to 
the  general  welfare?  Well  and  good.  But  the  sort  of 
public  spirit  that  scamps  its  bread-winning  work,  whether 
with  the  trowel,  the  pen,  or  the  overseeing  brain,  that  it 
may  hurry  to  scenes  of  political  or  social  agitation,  would 
be  as  baleful  a  gift  to  our  people  as  any  malignant  demon 
could  devise.  One  best  part  of  educational  training  is 
that  which  comes  through  special  knowledge  and  manipu- 
lative or  other  skill,  with  its  usual  accompaniment  of 
delight,  in  relation  to  work  which  is  the  daily  bread-win- 
ning occupation — which  is  a  man's  contribution  to  the 
effective  wealth  of  society  in  return  for  what  he  takes  as 
his  own  share.  But  this  duty  of  doing  one's  proper  Avork 
well,  and  taking  care  that  every  product  of  one's  labor 
shall  be  genuinely  what  it  pretends  to  be,  is  not  only  left 
out  of  morals  in  popular  speech,  it  is  very  little  insisted 
on  by  public  teachers,  at  least  in  the  only  effective  way — 
by  tracing  the  continuous  effects  of  ill-done  work.  Some 
of  them  seem  to  be  still  hopeful  that  it  will  follow  as  a 
necessary  consequence  from  week-day  services,  ecclesias- 
tical decoration,  and  improved  hymn-books;  others  appar- 
ently trust  to  descanting  on  self-culture  in  general,  or  to 
raising  a  general  sense  of  faulty  circumstances;  and  mean- 
while lax,  make-shift  work  from  the  high  conspicuous  kind 
to  the  average  and  obscure,  is  allowed  to  pass  unstamped 
with  the  disgrace  of  immorality,  though  there  is  not  a 
member  of  society  who  is  not  daily  suffering  from  it 
materially  and  spiritually,  and  though  it  is  the  fatal  cause 
that  must  degrade  our  national  rank  and  our  commerce  in 


MORAL   SWINDLERS.  125 

spite  of  all  open  markets  and  discovery  of  available  coal- 
seams. 

I  suppose  one  may  take  the  popular  misuse  of  the  words 
Morality  and  Morals  as  some  excuse  for  certain  absurdities 
which  are  occasional  fashions  in  speech  and  writing — 
certain  old  lay  figures,  as  ugly  as  the  queerest  Asiatic  idol, 
v/hich  at  different  periods  get  propped  into  loftiness,  and 
:it tired  in  magnificent  Venetian  drapery,  so  that  whether 
they  have  a  human  face  or  not  is  of  little  consequence. 
One  is,  the  notion  that  there  is  a  radical,  irreconcilable 
opposition  between  intellect  and  morality.  I  do  not  mean 
the  simple  statement  of  fact,  which  everybody  knows,  that 
remarkably  able  men  have  had  very  faulty  morals,  and  have 
outraged  public  feeling  even  at  its  ordinary  standard;  but 
the  supposition  that  the  ablest  intellect,  the  highest  genius, 
will  see  through  morality  as  a  sort  of  twaddle  for  bibs  and 
tuckers,  a  doctrine  of  dullness,  a  mere  incident  in  human 
stupidity.  We  begin  to  understand  the  acceptance  of  this 
foolishness  by  considering  that  we  live  in  a  society  where 
we  may  hear  a  treacherous  monarch,  or  a  malignant  and 
lying  politician,  or  a  man  who  uses  either  official  or  liter- 
ary power  as  an  instrument  of  his  private  partiality  or 
hatred,  or  a  manufacturer  who  devises  the  falsification  of 
wares,  or  a  trader  who  deals  in  virtueless  grains-seed, 
praised  or  compassionated  because  of  his  excellent  morals. 
Clearly  if  morality  meant  no  more  than  such  decencies  as 
are  practiced  by  these  poisonous  members  of  society,  it 
would  be  possible  to  say  without  suspicion  of  light-headed- 
ness,  that  morality  lay  aloof  from  the  grand  stream  of 
human  affairs,  as  a  small  channel  fed  by  the  stream  and 
not  missed  from  it.  While  this  form  of  nonsense  is  con- 
veyed in  the  popular  use  of  words,  there  must  be  plenty 
of  well-dressed  ignorance  at  leisure  to  run  through  a  box 
of  books,  which  will  feel  itself  initiated  in  the  free- 
masonry of  intellect  by  a  view  of  life  which  might  take 
for  a  Shakesperian  motto — 

"  Fair  is  foul  and  foul  is  fair, 
Hover  through  the  fog  and  filthy  air  "— 

and  will  find  itself  easily  provided  with  striking  conversar 
tion  by  the  rule  of  reversing  all  the  judgments  on  good 
and  evil  which  have  come  to  be  the  calendar  and  clock- 
work of  society.  But  let  our  habitual  talk  give  morals 
their  full  meaning  as  the  conduct  which,  in  every  human 
relation,  would  follow  from  the  fullest  knowledge  and  the 


126  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

fullest  sympathy — a  meaning  perpetually  corrected  and 
enriched  by  a  more  thorough  appreciation  of  dependence 
in  things,  and  a  finer  sensibility  to  both  physical  and  spir- 
itual fact — and  this  ridiculous  ascription  of  superlative 
power  to  minds  which  have  no  effective  awe-inspiring 
vision  of  the  human  lot,  no  response  of  understanding  to 
the  connection  between  duty  and  the  material  processes  by 
which  the  world  is  kept  habitable  for  cultivated  man,  will 
be  tacitly  discredited  without  any  need  to  cite  the  immor- 
tal names  that  all  arre  obliged  to  take  as  the  measure  of 
intellectual  rank  and  highly-charged  genius. 

Suppose  a  Frenchman — I  mean  no  disrespect  to  the 
great  French  nation,  for  all  nations  are  afflicted  with  their 
peculiar  parasitic  growths,  which  are  lazy,  hungry  forms, 
usually  characterised  by  a  disproportionate  swallowing 
apparatus:  suppose  a  Parisian  who  should  shuffle  down  the 
Boulevard  with  a  soul  ignorant  of  the  gravest  cares  and 
the  deepest  tenderness  of  manhood,  and  a  frame  more  or 
less  fevered  by  debauchery,  mentally  polishing  into  utmost 
refinement  of  phrase  and  rhythm  verses  which  were  an 
enlargement  on  that  Shakesperian  motto,  and  worthy  of  the 
most  expensive  title  to  be  furnished  by  the  venders  of  such 
antithetic  ware  as  Les  marguerites  de  VEnfer,  or  Les  delices 
de  Beelzebutli.  This  supposed  personage  might  probably 
enough  regard  his  negation  of  those  moral  sensibilities 
which  make  half  the  warp  and  woop  of  human  history, 
his  indifference  to  the  hard  thinking  and  hard  handiwork 
of  life,  to  which  he  owed  even  his  own  gauzy  mental  gar- 
ments with  their  spangles  of  poor  paradox,  as  the  royalty 
of  genius,  for  we  are  used  to  witness  such  self-crowning  in 
many  forms  of  mental  alienation;  but  he  would  not,  I 
think,  be  taken,  even  by  his  own  generation,  as  a  living 
proof  that  there  can  exist  such  a  combination  as  that  of 
moral  stupidity  and  trivial  emphasis  of  personal  indul- 
gence with  the  large  yet  finely  discriminating  vision  which 
marks  the  intellectual  masters  of  our  kind.  Doubtless 
there  are  many  sorts  of  transfiguration,  and  a  man  who 
has  come  to  be  worthy  of  all  gratitude  and  reverence  may 
have  had  his  swinish  period,  wallowing  in  ugly  places;  but 
suppose  it  had  been  handed  down  to  us  that  Sophocles  or 
Virgil  had  at  one  time  made  himself  scandalous  in  this 
way:  the  works  which  have  consecrated  their  memory  for 
our  admiration  and  gratitude  are  not  a  glorifying  of 
swinishness,  but  an  artistic  incorporation  of  the  highest 
sentiment  known  to  their  age. 


MORAL   SWINDLERS.  127 

All  these  may  seem  to  be  wide  reasons  for  objecting  to 
Melissa's  pity  for  Sir  Gavial  Mantrap  on  the  ground  of 
his  good  morals;  but  their  connection  will  not  be  obscure 
to  anyone  who  has  taken  pains  to  observe  the  links  uniting 
the  scattered  signs  of  our  social  development. 


128  THEOPHB1STUS    SUCH. 


XVII. 
SHADOWS  OF  THE  COMING  KACE. 

MY  friend  Trost.  who  is  no  optimist  as  to  the  state  of 
the  universe  hitherto,  but  is  confident  that  at  some  future 
period  within  the  duration  of  the  solar  system,  ours  will 
be  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds — a  hope  which  I  always 
honor  as  a  sign  of  beneficent  qualities — my  friend  Trost 
always  tries  to  keep  up  my  spirits  under  the  sight  of  the 
extremely  unpleasant  and  disfiguring  work  by  which  many 
of  our  fellow  creatures  have  to  get  their  bread,  with  the 
assurance  that  "all  this  will  soon  be  done  by  machinery.'1 
But  he  sometimes  neutralizes  the  consolation  by  extend- 
ing it  over  so  large  an  area  of  human  labor,  and  insisting 
so  impressively  on  the  quantity  of  energy  which  will  thus 
be  set  free  for  loftier  purposes,  that  I  am  tempted  to  desire 
an  occasional  famine  of  invention  in  the  coming  ages,  lest 
the  humbler  kinds  of  work  should  be  entirely  nullified 
while  there  are  still  left  some  men  and  women  who  are  not 
fit  for  the  highest. 

Especially,  when  one  considers  the  perfunctory  way  in 
which  some  of  the  most  exalted  tasks  are  already  executed 
by  those  who  are  understood  to  be  educated  for  them, 
there  rises  a  fearful  vision  of  the  human  race  Evolving 
machinery  which  will  by-and-by  throw  itself  fatally  out  of 
york.  When,  in  the  Bank  of  England,  I  see  a  wondrously 
delicate  machine  for  testing  sovereigns,  a  shrewd  implaca- 
ble little  steel  Khadainanthus  that,  once  the  coins  are 
delivered  up  to  it,  lifts  and  balances  each  in  turn  for  the 
fraction  of  an  instant,  finds  it  wanting  or  sufficient,  and 
dismisses  it  to  right  or  left  with  rigorous  justice;  when  I  am 
told  of  micrometers  and  thermopiles  and  tasimeters  which 
deal  physically  with  the  invisible,  the  impalpable,  and  the 
unimaginable;  of  cunning  wires  and  wheels  and  pointing 
needles  which  will  register  your  and  my  quickness  so  as  to 
exclude  flattering  opinion;  of  a  machine  for  drawing  the 
right  conclusion,  which  will  doubtless  by-and-by  be  im- 
proved into  an  automaton  for  finding  true  premises;  of  a 
microphone  which  detects  the  cadence  of  the  fly's  foot  on 
the  ceiling,  and  may  be  expected  presently  to  discriminate 


SHADOWS   OF   THE   COMING    RACE.  129 

the  noises  of  our  various  follies  as  they  soliloquize  or  con- 
verse in  our  brains — my  mind  seeming  too  small  for  these 
things,  I  get  a  little  out  of  it,  like  an  unfortunate  savage 
too  suddenly  brought  face  to  face  with  civilization,  and  I 
exclaim — 

"  Am  I  already  in  the  shadow  of  the  Coining  Race?  and 
will  the  creatures  who  are  to  transcend  and  finally  super- 
sede us  be  steely  organisms,  giving  out  tbe  effluvia  of  the 
laboratory,  and  performing  with  infallible  exactness  more 
than  everything  that  we  have  performed  with  a  slovenly 
approximativeness  and  self-defeating  inaccuracy?" 

"But,"  says  Trost,  treating  me  with  cautious  mildness 
on  hearing  me  vent  this  raving  notion,  "you  forget  that 
these  wonder-workers  are  the  slaves  of  our  race,  need  our 
tendance  and  regulation,  obey  the  mandates  of  our  con- 
sciousness, and  are  only  deaf  and  dumb  bringers  of  reports 
which  we  decipher  and  make  use  of.  They  are  simply 
extensions  of  the  human  organism,  so  to  speak,  limbs  im- 
measurably more  powerful,  ever  more  subtle  finger-tips, 
ever  more  mastery  over  the  invisibly  great  and  the  invisibly 
small.  Each  new  machine  needs  a  new  appliance  of 
human  skill  to  construct  it,  new  devices  to  feed  it  with 
material,  and  often  keener-edged  faculties  to  note  its  reg- 
istrations or  performances.  How  then  can  machines 
supersede  us? — they  depend  upon  us.  When  we  cease, 
they  cease." 

"I  arn  not  so  sure  of  that,"  said  I,  getting  back  into  my 
mind,  and  becoming  rather  willful  in  consequence.  "If, 
as  I  have  heard  you  contend,  machines  as  they  are  more 
and  more  perfected  will  require  less  and  less  of  tendance, 
how  do  I  know  that  they  may  not  be  ultimately  made  to 
carry,  or  may  not  in  themselves  evolve,  conditions  of  self- 
supply,  self-repair,  and  reproduction,  and  not  only  do  all 
the  mighty  and  subtle  work  possible  on  this  planet  better 
than  we  could  do  it,  but  with  the  immense  advantage  of 
banishing  from  the  earth's  atmosphere  screaming  con- 
sciousnesses which,  in  our  comparatively  clumsy  race, 
make  an  intolerable  noise  and  fuss  to  each  other  about 
every  petty  ant-like  performance,  looking  on  at  all  work 
only  as  it  were  to  spring  a  rattle  here  or  blow  a  trumpet 
there,  with  a  ridiculous  sense  of  being  effective?  I  for  my 
part  cannot  see  any  reason  why  a  sufficiently  penetrating 
thinker,  who  can  see  his  way  through  a  thousand  years  or 
so,  should  not  conceive  a  parliament  of  machines,  in  which 
the  manners  were  excellent  and  the  motions  infallible  in 
9 


130  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

logic:  one  honorable  instrument,  a  remote  descendant  of 
the  Voltaic  family,  might  discharge  a  powerful  current 
(entirely  without  animosity)  on  an  honorable  instrument 
opposite,  of  more  upstart  origin,  but  belonging  to  the 
ancient  edge-tool  race  which  we  already  at  Sheffield  see 
paring  thick  iron  as  if  it  were  mellow  cheese — by  this 
unerringly  directed  .discharge  operating  on  movements 
corresponding  to  what  we  call  Estimates,  and  by  necessary 
mechanical  consequence  on  movements  corresponding  to 
what  we  call  the  Funds,  which  with  a  vain  analogy  we 
sometimes  speak  of  as  "  sensitive. "  For  every  machine 
would  be  perfectly  educated,  that  is  to  say,  would  have  the 
suitable  molecular  adjustments,  which  wculd  act  not  the 
less  infallibly  for  being  free  from  the  fussy  accompani- 
ment of  that  consciousness  to  which  our  prejudice  gives  a 
supreme  governing  rank,  when  in  truth  it  is  an  idle  para- 
site on  the  grand  sequence  of  things/' 

ft  Nothing  of  the  sort ! "  returned  Trost,  getting  angry, 
and  judging  it  kind  to  treat  me  with  some  severity;  "  what 
you  have  heard  me  say  is,  that  our  race  will  and  must  act 
as  a  nervous  center  to  the  utmost  development  of  mechan- 
ical processes:  the  subtly  refined  powers  of  machines  will 
react  in  producing  more  subtly  refined  thinking  processes 
which  will  occupy  the  minds  set  free  from  grosser  labor. 
Say,  for  example,  that  all  the  scavengers'  work  of  London 
were  done,  so  far  as  human  attention  is  concerned,  by  the 
occasional  pressure  of  a  brass  button  (as  in  the  ringing  of 
an  electric  bell),  you  will  then  have  a  multitude  of  brains 
set  free  for  the  exquisite  enjoyment  of  dealing  with  the 
exact  sequences  and  high  speculations  supplied  and 
prompted  by  the  delicate  machines  which  yield  a  response 
to  the  fixed  stars,  and  give  readings  of  the  spiral  vortices 
fundamentally  concerned  in  the  production  of  epic  poems 
or  great  judicial  harangues.  So  far  from  mankind  being 
thrown  out  of  work  according  to  your  notion,"  concluded 
Trost,  with  a  peculiar  nasal  note  of  scorn,  "if  it  were  not 
for  your  incurable  dilettanteism  in  science  as  in  all  other 
things — if  you  had  once  understood  the  action  of  any  del- 
icate machine,  you  would  perceive  that  the  sequences  it 
carries  throughout  the  realm  of  phenomena  would  require 
many  generations,  perhaps  aeons,  of  understandings  con- 
siderably stronger  than  yours,  to  exhaust  the  store  of  work 
it  lays  open." 

"  Precisely,"  said  I,  with  a  meekness  which  I  felt  was 
praiseworthy;  "it  is  the  feebleness  of  my  capacity,  bring- 


SHADOWS  OF  THE   COMING   RACE.  13* 

ing  me  nearer  than  yon  to  the  human  average,  that  per- 
haps enables  me  to  imagine  certain  results  better  than  you 
can.  Doubtless  the  very  fishes  of  our  rivers,  gullible  as 
they  look,  and  slow  as  they  are  to  be  rightly  convinced  in 
another  order  of  facts,  form  fewer  false  expectations  about 
each  other  than  we  should  form  about  them  if  we  were  in  a 
position  of  somewhat  fuller  intercourse  with  their  species; 
for  even  as  it  is  we  have  continually  to  be  surprised  that 
they  do  not  rise  to  our  carefully  selected  bait.  Take  me 
then  as  a  sort  of  reflective  and  experienced  carp:  but  do 
not  estimate  the  justice  of  my  ideas  by  my  facial  expres- 
sion/' 

"Pooh!"  says  Trost.  (We  are  on  very  intimate  terms.) 
" Naturally,"  I  persisted,  "it  is  less  easy  to  you  than 
to  me  to  imagine  our  race  transcended  and  superseded, 
since  the  more  energy  a  being  is  possessed  of,  the  harder 
it  must  be  for  him  to  conceive  his  own  death.  But  I,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  a  reflective  carp,  can  easily  imagine 
myself  and  my  congeners  dispensed  with  in  the  frame  of 
things  and  giving  way  not  only  to  a  superior  but  a  vastly 
different  kind  of  Entity.  What  I  would  ask  you  is,  to 
show  me  why,  since  each  new  invention  casts  a  new  light 
along  the  pathway  of  discovery,  and  each  new  combination 
or  structure  brings  into  play  more  conditions  than  its 
inventor  foresaw,  there  should  not  at  length  be  a  machine 
of  such  high  mechanical  and  chemical  powers  that  it 
would  find  and  assimilate  the  material  to  supply  its  own 
waste,  and  then  by  a  further  evolution  of  internal  molecu- 
lar movements  reproduce  itself  by  some  process  of  fission 
or  budding.  This  last  stage  having  been  reached,  either 
by  man's  contrivance  or  as  an  unforeseen  result,  one  sees 
that  the  process  of  natural  selection  must  drive  men  alto- 
gether out  of  the  field;  for  they  will  long  before  have 
begun  to  sink  into  the  miserable  condition  of  those  un- 
happy characters  in  fable  who,  having  demons  or  djinns  at 
their  beck,  and  being  obliged  to  supply  them  with  work, 
found  too  much  of  everything  done  in  too  short  a  time. 
What  demons  so  potent  as  molecular  movements,  none  the 
less  tremendously  potent  for  not  carrying  the  futile  cargo 
of  a  consciousness  screeching  irrelevantly,  like  a  fowl  tied 
head  downmost  to  the -saddle  of  a  swift  horseman.  Under 
Buch  uncomfortable  circumstances,  our  race  will  hnve 
diminished  with  the  diminishing  call  on  their  energies, 
and  by  the  time  that  the  self- repairing  and  reproducing 
arise,  all  but :  i'<  w  of  the  rare  inventors,  calcu- 


132  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

lators  and  speculators  will  have  become  pale,  pulpy  and 
cretinous  from  fatty  or  other  degeneration,  and  behold 
around  them  a  scanty  hydrocephalous  offspring.  As  to  the 
breed  of  the  ingenious  and  intellectual,  their  nervous 
systems  will  at  last  have  been  overwrought  in  following  the 
molecular  revelations  of  the  immensely  more  powerful 
unconscious  race,  and  they  will  naturally,  as  the  less 
energetic  combinations  of  movement,  subside  like  the 
flame  of  a  candle  in  the  sunlight.  Thus  the  feebler  race, 
whose  corporeal  adjustments  happened  to  be  accompanied 
with  a  maniacal  consciousness  which  imagined  itself  moving 
its  mover,  will  have  vanished,  as  all  less  adapted  existences 
do  before  the  fittest  —  i.e.,  the  existence  composed  of  the 
most  persistent  groups  of  movements  and  the  most  capa- 
ble of  incorporating  new  groups  in  harmonious  relation. 
Who  —  if  our  consciousness  is,  as  I  have  been  given  to 
understand,  a  mere  stumbling  of  our  organisms  on  their 
way  to  unconscious  perfection — who  shall  say  that  those 
fittest  existences  will  not  be  found  along  the  track  of  what 
we  call  inorganic  combinations,  which  will  carry  on  the 
most  elaborate  processes  as  mutely  and  painlessly  as  we  are 
now  told  that  the  minerals  are  metamorphosing  themselves 
continually  in  the  dark  laboratory  of  the  earth's  crust? 
Thus  this  planet  may  be  filled  with  beings  who  will  be 
blind  and  deaf  as  the  inmost  rock,  yet  will  execute  changes 
as  delicate  and  complicated  as  those  of  human  language 
and  all  the  intricate  web  of  what  we  call  its  effects,  without 
sensitive  impression,  without  sensitive  impulse:  there  may 
be,  let  us  say,  mute  orations,  mute  rhapsodies,  mute  dis- 
cussions, and  no  consciousness  there  even  to  enjoy  the 
silence." 

"Absurd!"  grumbled  Trost. 

"  The  supposition  is  logical,"  said  I.  "  It  is  well  argued 
from  the  premises." 

"Whose  premises?"  cried  Trost,  turning  on  me  with 
some  fierceness.  "  You  don't  mean  to  call  them  mine,  I 
hope." 

^  "Heaven  forbid!  They  seem  to  be  flying  about  in  the 
air  with  other  germs,  and  have  found  a  sort  of  nidus 
among  my  melancholy  fancies.  Nobody  really  holds  them. 
They  bear  the  same  relation  to  real  belief  as  walking  on  the 
head  for  a  show  does  to  running  away  from  an  explosion  or 
walking  fast  to  catch  the  train." 


THE   MODEUN    UEP!    HEP!    HE?!  133 


XVIII. 
THE  MODERN  HEP!  HEP!  HEP! 

To  DISCEEN  likeness  amidst  diversity,  it  is  well  known, 
does  not  require  so  fine  a  mental  edge  as  the  discerning  of 
diversity  amidst  general  sameness.  The  primary  rough 
classification  depends  on  the  prominent  resemblances  of 
things:  the  progress  is  toward  finer  and  finer  discrimina- 
tion according  to  minute  differences. 

Yet  even  at  this  stage  of  European  culture  one's  atten- 
tion is  continually  drawn  to  the  prevalence  of  that  grosser 
mental  sloth  which  makes  people  dull  to  the  most  ordinary 
prompting  of  comparison — the  bringing  things  together 
because  of  their  likeness.  The  same  motives,  the  same 
ideas,  the  same  practices,  are  alternately  admired  and 
abhorred,  lauded  and  denounced,  according  to  their  associ- 
ation with  superficial  differences,  historical  or  actually 
social:  even  learned  writers  treating  of  great  subjects  often 
show  an  attitude  of  mind  not  greatly  superior  in  its  logic 
to  that  of  the  frivolous  fine  lady  who  is  indignant  at  the 
frivolity  of  her  maid. 

To  take  only  the  subject  of  the  Jews:  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  find  a  lorrn  of  bad  reasoning  about  them  which  has 
not  been  heard  in  conversation  or  been  admitted  to  the 
dignity  of  print;  but  the  neglect  of  resemblances  is  a  com- 
mon property  of  dullness  which  unites  all  the  various 
points  of  view — the  prejudiced,  the  puerile,  the  spiteful, 
and  the  abysmally  ignorant. 

That  the  preservation  of  national  memories  is  an  ele- 
ment and  a  means  of  national  greatness,  that  their  revival 
is  a  sign  of  reviving  nationality,  that  every  heroic  defender, 
every  patriotic  restorer,  has  been  inspired  by  such  memo- 
ries and  has  made  them  his  watchword,  that  even  such  a 
corporate  existence  as  that  of  a  Roman  legion  or  an  Eng- 
lish regiment  has  been  made  valorous  by  memorial  stand- 
ards,— these  are  the  glorious  commonplaces  of  historic 
teaching  at  our  public  schools  and  universities,  being 
happily  ingrained  in  Greek  and  Latin  classics.  They  have 
also  been  impressed  on  the  world  by  conspicuous  modern 
instances.  That  there  is  a  free  modern  Greece  is  due— 


134  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

through  all  infiltration  of  other  than  Greek  blood — to  the 
presence  of  ancient  Greece  in  the  consciousness  of  Euro- 
pean men;  and  every  speaker  would  feel  his  point  safe  if  he 
were  to  praise  Byron's  devotion  to  a  cause  made  glorious 
by  ideal  identification  with  the  past;  hardly  so,  if  he  were 
to  insist  that  the  Greeks  were  not  to  be  helped  further 
because  their  history  shows  that  they  were  anciently  unsur- 
passed in  treachery  and  lying,  and  that  many  modern 
Greeks  are  highly  disreputable  characters,  while  others  are 
disposed  to  grasp  too  large  a  share  of  our  commerce.  The 
same  with  Italy:  the  pathos  of  his  country's  Ipt  pierced  the 
youthful  soul  of  Mazzini,  because,  like  Dante's,  his  blood 
was  fraught  with  the  kinship  of  Italian  greatness,  his 
imagination  filled  with  a  majestic  past  that  wrought  itself 
into  a  majestic  future.  Half  a  century  ago  what  was 
Italy?  An  idling-place  of  dilettanteism  or  of  itinerant 
motiveless  wealth,  a  territory  parceled  out  for  papal  suste- 
nance, dynastic  convenience,  and  the  profit  of  an  alien 
government.  What  were  the  Italians?  No  people,  no 
voice  in  European  counsels,  no  massive  .power  in  European 
affairs,  a  race  thought  of  in  English  and  French  society  as 
chiefly  adapted  to  the  operatic  stage,  or  to  serve  as  models 
for  painters;  disposed  to  smile  gratefully  at  the  reception 
of  halfpence;  and  by  the  more  historical  remembered  to  be 
rather  polite  than  truthful,  in  all  probability  a  combina- 
tion of  Machiavelli,  Eubini,  and  Masaniello.  Thanks 
chiefly  to  the  divine  gift  of  a  memory  which  inspires  the 
moments  with  a  past,  a  present,  and  a  future,  and  gives 
the  sense  of  corporate  existence  that  raises  man  above  the 
otherwise  more  respectable  and  innocent  brute,  all  that,  or 
most  of  it  is  changed. 

Again,  one  of  our  living  historians  finds  just  sympathy 
in  his  vigorous  insistence  on  our  true  ancestry,  on  our 
being  the  strongly  marked  heritors  in  language  and  genius 
of  those  old  English  seamen  who,  beholding  a  rich  country 
with  a  most  convenient  seaboard,  came  doubtless  with  a 
sense  of  divine  warrant,  and  settled  themselves  on  this  or 
the  other  side  of  fertilizing  streams,  gradually  conquering 
more  and  more  of  the  pleasant  land  from  the  natives  who 
knew  nothing  of  Odin,  and  finally  making  unusually  clean 
work  in  ridding  themselves  of  those  prior  occupants. 
"Let  us,"  he  virtually  says,  "let  us  know  who  were  our 
forefathers,  who  it  was  that  won  the  soil  for  us,  and 
brought  the  good  seed  of  those  institutions  through  which 
we  should  not  arrogantly  but  gratefully  feel  ourselves 


THE    MODERN    HEP!    HEP!    HE?!  135 

distinguished  among  the  nations  as  possessors  of  long- 
inherited  freedom;  let  us  not  keep  up  an  ignorant  kind  of 
naming  which  disguises  our  true  affinities  of  blood  and 
language,  but  let  us  see  thoroughly  what  sort  of  notions 
and  traditions  our  forefathers  had,  and  what  sort  of  song 
inspired  them.  Let  the  poetic  fragments  which  breathe 
forth  their  fierce  bravery  in  battle  and  their  trust  in  fierce 
gods  who  helped  them,  be  treasured  with  affectionate 
reverence.  These  seafaring,  invading,  self-asserting  men 
were  the  English  of  old  time,  and  were  our  fathers  who 
did  rough  work  by  which  we  are  profiting.  They  had 
virtues  which  incorporated  themselves  in  wholesome  usages 
to  which  we  trace  our  own  political  blessings.  Let  us 
know  and  acknowledge  our  common  relationship  to  them, 
and  be  thankful  that  over  and  above  the  affections  and 
duties  which  spring  from  our  manhood,  we  have  the  closer 
and  more  constantly  guiding  duties  which  belong  to  us  as 
Englishmen." 

To  this  view  of  our  nationality  most  persons  who  have 
feeling  and  understanding  enough  to  be  conscious  of  the 
connection  between  the  patriotic  affection  and  every  other 
affection  which  lifts  us  above  emigrating  rats  and  free- 
loving  baboons,  will  be  disposed  to  say  Amen.  True,  we 
are  not  indebted  to  those  ancestors  for  our  religion;  we 
are  rather  proud  of  having  got  that  illumination  from 
elsewhere.  The  men  who  planted  our  nation  were  not 
Christians,  though  they  began  their  work  centuries  after 
Christ;  and  they  had  a  decided  objection  to  Christianity 
when  it  was  first  proposed  to  them;  they  were  not  mono- 
thoists,  and  their  religion  was  the  reverse  of  spiritual. 
But  since  we  have  been  fortunate  enough  to  keep  the 
island-home  they  won  for  us,  and  have  been  on  the  whole 
a  prosperous  people,  rather  continuing  the  plan  of  invading 
and  spoiling  other  lands  than  being  forced  to  beg  for 
shelter  in  them,  nobody  has  reproached  us  because  our 
fathers  thirteen  hundred  years  ago  worshipped  Odin, 
massacred  Britons,  and  were  with  difficulty  persuaded  to 
accept  Christianity,  knowing  nothing  of  Hebrew  history 
and  the  reasons  why  Christ  should  be  received  as  the 
.Savior  of  mankind.  The  Red  Indians,  not  liking  us  when 
we  settled  among  them,  might  have  been  willing  to  fling 
such  facts  in  our  faces,  but  they  were  too  ignorant,  and 
besides,  their  opinions  did  not  signify,  because  we  were  able, 
if  we  liked,  to  exterminate  them.  The  Hindoos  also  have 
doubtless  had  their  rancors  against  us  and  still  entertain 


136  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

enough  ill-will  to  make  unfavorable  remarks  on  our  char- 
acter, especially  as  to  our  historic  rapacity  and  arrogant 
notions  of  our  own  superiority;  they  perhaps  do  not  admire 
the  usual  English  profile,  and  they  are  not  converted  to  our 
way  of  feeding;  but  though  we  are  a  small  number  of  an 
alien  race  profiting  by  the  territory  and  produce  of  these 
prejudiced  people,  they  are  unable  to  turn  us  out;  at  least, 
when  they  tried  we  showed  them  their  mistake.  We  do 
not  call  ourselves  a  dispersed  and  punished  people;  we  are 
a  colonizing  people,  and  it  is  we  who  have  punished  others. 
Still  the  historian  guides  us  rightly  in  urging  us  to  d \vell 
on  the  virtues  of  our  ancestors  with  emulation,  and  to 
cherish  our  sense  of  common  descent  as  a  bond  of  obliga- 
tion. The  eminence,  the  nobleness  of  a  people,  depends 
on  its  capability  of  being  stirred  by  memories,  and  of  striv- 
ing for  what  we  call  spiritual  ends — ends  which  consist 
not  in  immediate  material  possession,  but  in  the  satis- 
faction of  a  great  feeling  that  animates  the  collective  body 
as  with  one  soul.  A  people  having  the  seed  of  worthiness 
in  it  must  feel  an  answering  thrill  when  it  is  adjured  by 
the  deaths  of  its  heroes  who  died  to  preserve  it  national 
existence;  when  it  is  reminded  of  its  small  beginnings 
and  gradual  growth  through  past  labors  and  struggles, 
such  as  are  still  demanded  of  it  in  order  that  the  freedom 
and  well-being  thus  inherited  may  be  transmitted  unim- 
paired to  children  and  children's  children;  when  an  appeal 
against  the  permission  of  injustice  is  made  to  great  prece- 
dents in  its  history  and  to  the  better  genius  breathing  in 
its  institutions.  It  is  this  living  force  of  sentiment  in 
common  which  makes  a  national  consciousness.  Nations 
so  moved  will  resist  conquest  with  the  very  breasts  of  their 
women,  will  pay  their  millions  and  their  blood  to  abolish 
slavery,  will  share  privation  in  famine  and  all  calamity, 
will  produce  poets  to  sing  "some  great  story  of  a  man," 
and  thinkers  whose  theories  will  bear  the  test  of  action. 
An  individual  man,  to  be  harmoniously  great,  must  belong 
to  a  nation  of  this  order,  if  not  in  actual  existence  yet 
existing  in  the  past,  in  memory,  as  a  departed,  invisi- 
ble, beloved  ideal,  once  a  reality,  and  perhaps  to  be 
restored.  A  common  humanity  is  not  yet  enough  to  feed 
the  rich  blood  of  various  activity  which  makes  a  complete 
man.  The  time  is  not  come  for  cosmopolitanism  to  be 
highly  virtuous,  any  more  than  for  communism  to  suffice 
for  social  energy.  I  am  not  bound  to  feel  for  a  Chinaman 
as  I  feel  for  my  fellow-countryman:  I  am  bound  not  to 


THE    MODERN    IIKI'!     HKI'!     HEP!  137 

demoralize  him  with  opium,  not  to  compel  him  to  my  will 
by  destroying  or  plundering  the  fruits  of  his  labor  on  the 
alleged  ground  that  he  is  not  cosmopolitan  enough,  and 
not  to  insult  him  for  his  want  of  my  tailoring  and  religion 
when  he  appears  as  a  peaceable  visitor  on  the  London 
pavement.  It  is  admirable  in  a  Briton  with  a  good  pur- 
pose to  learn  Chinese,  but  it  would  not  be  a  proof  of  fine 
intellect  in  him  to  taste  Chinese  poetry  in  the  original 
more  than  he  tastes  the  poetry  of  his  own  tongue.  Affec- 
tion, intelligence,  duty,  radiate  from  a  center,  and  nature 
has  decided  that  for  us  English  folk  that  center  can  be 
neither  China  nor  Peru.  Most  of  us  feel  this  unreflect- 
ingly; for  the  affectation  of  undervaluing  everything 
native,  and  being  too  fine  for  one's  own  country,  belongs 
only  to  a  few  minds  of  no  dangerous  leverage.  What  is  want- 
ing is,  that  we  should  recognize  a  corresponding  attach- 
ment to  nationality  as  legitimate  in  every  other  people, 
and  understand  that  its  absence  is  a  privation  of  the 
greatest  good. 

For,  to  repeat,  not  only  the  nobleness  of  a  nation 
depends  on  the  presence  of  this  national  consciousness,  but 
also  the  nobleness  of  each  individual  citizen.  Our  dignity 
and  rectitude  are  proportioned  to  our  sense  of  relationship 
with  something  great,  admirable,  pregnant  with  high  pos- 
sibilities, worthy  of  sacrifice,  a  continual  inspiration  to  self- 
repression  and  discipline  by  the  presentation  of  aims  larger 
and  more  attractive  to  our  generous  part  than  the  secur- 
ing of  personal  ease  or  prosperity.  And  a  people  possess- 
ing this  good  should  surely  feel  not  only  a  ready  syii.pathy 
with  the  effort  of  those  who,  having  lost  the  good,  strive  to 
regain  it,  but  a  profound  pity  for  any  degradation  result- 
ing from  its  loss;  nay,  something  more  than  pity  when 
happier  nationalities  have  made  victims  of  the  unfortunate 
whose  memories  nevertheless  are  the  very  fountain  to  which 
the  persecutors  trace  their  most  vaunted  blessings. 

These  notions  are  familiar:  few  will  deny  them  in  the 
abstract,  and  many  are  found  loudly  asserting  them  in  rela- 
tion to  this  or  the  other  particular  case.  But  here  as  else- 
where, in  the  ardent  application  of  ideas,  there  is  a  notable 
lack  of  simple  comparison  or  sensibility  to  resemblance. 
The  European  world  has  long  been  used  to  consider  the 
Jews  as  altogether  exceptional,  and  it  has  followed  natu- 
rally enough  that  they  have  been  excepted  from  the  rules 
of  justice  and  mercy,  which  are  based  on  human  likeness. 
But  to  consider  a  people  whose  ideas  have  determined  the 


138  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

religion  of  half  the  world,  and  that  the  more  cultivated 
half,  and  who  made  the  most  eminent  struggle  against  the 
power  of  Eome,  as  a  purely  exceptional  race,  is  a  demoral- 
izing offense  against  rational  knowledge,  a  stultifying 
inconsistency  in  historical  interpretation.  Every  nation 
of  forcible  character — i.  e.,  of  strongly  marked  character- 
istics, is  so  far  exceptional.  The  distinctive  note  of  each 
bird-species  is  in  this  sense  exceptional,  but  the  necessary 
ground  of  such  distinction  is  a  deeper  likeness.  The 
superlative  peculiarity  in  the  Jews  admitted,  our  affinity 
with  them  is  only  the  more  apparent  when  the  elements  of 
their  peculiarity  are  discerned. 

From  whatever  point  of  view  the  writings  of  the  Old 
Testament  may  be  regarded,  the  picture  they  present  of  u 
national  development  is  of  high  interest  and  speciality, 
nor  can  their  historic  momentousness  be  much  affected  by 
any  varieties  of  theory  as  to  the  relation  they  bear  to  the 
New  Testament  or  to  the  rise  and  constitution  of  Chris- 
tianity. Whether  we  accept  the  canonical  Hebrew  books  as 
a  revelation  or  simply  as  part  of  an  ancient  literature, 
makes  no  difference  to  the  fact  that  we  find  there  the 
strongly  characterized  portraiture  of  a  people  educated 
from  an  earlier  or  later  period  to  a  sense  of  separateness 
unique  in  its  intensity,  a  people  taught  by  many  concur- 
rent influences  to  identify  faithfulness  to  its  national  tra- 
ditions with  the  highest  social  and  religious  blessings. 
Our  too  scanty  sources  of  Jewish  history,  from  the  return 
under  Ezra  to  the  beginning  of  the  desperate  resistance 
against  Kome,  show  us  the  heroic  and  triumphant  struggle 
of  the  Maccabees,  which  rescued  the  religion  and  inde- 

Eendence  of  the  nation  from  the  corrupting  sway  of  the 
yrian  Greeks,  adding  to  the  glorious  sum  of  its  memorials, 
and  stimulating  continuous  efforts  of  a  more  peaceful  sort 
to  maintain  and  develop  that  national  life  which  the  heroes 
had  fought  and  died  for,  by  internal  measures  of  legal 
administration  and  public  teaching.  Thenceforth  the 
virtuous  elements  of  the  Jewish  life  were  engaged,  as  they 
had  been  with  varying  aspects  during  the  long  and  change- 
ful prophetic  period  and  the  restoration  under  Ezra,  on 
the  side  of  preserving  the  specific  national  character 
against  a  demoralizing  fusion  with  that  of  foreigners  whose 
religion  and  ritual  were  idolatrous  and  often  obscene. 
There  was  always  a  Foreign  party  reviling  the  National 
party  as  narrow,  and  sometimes  manifesting  their  own 
Dread th  in  extensive  views  of  advancement  or  profit  to 


THE    MODERN    HEP!    HEP!     HEP!  139 

themselves  by  flattery  of  a  foreign  power.  Such  internal 
conflict  naturally  tightened  the  bands  of  conservatism, 
which  needed  to  be  strong  if  it  were  to  rescue  the  sacred 
ark,  the  vital  spirit  of  a  small  nation — "  the  smallest  of 
the  nations  " — whose  territory  lay  on  the  highway  between 
three  continents;  and  when  the  dread  and  hatred  of  foreign 
sway  hud  condensed  itself  into  dread  and  hatred  of  the 
Romans,  many  Conservatives  became  Zealots,  whose  chief 
mark  was  that  they  advocated  resistance  to  the  death 
against  the  submergence  of  their  nationality.  Much  might 
be  said  on  this  point  toward  distinguishing  the  desperate 
struggle  against  a  conquest  which  is  regarded  as  degrada- 
tion and  corruption,  from  rash,  hopeless  insurrection 
against  an  established  native  government;  and  for  my  part 
(if  that  were  of  any  consequence)  I  share  the  spirit  of  the 
Zealots.  I  take  the  spectacle  of  the  Jewish  people  defying 
the  Roman  edict,  and  preferring  death  by  starvation  or 
the  sword  to  the  introduction  of  Caligula's  deified  statue 
into  the  temple,  as  a  sublime  type  of  steadfastness.  But 
all  that  need  be  noticed  here  is  the  continuity  of  that 
national  education  (by  outward  and  inward  circumstance) 
which  created  in  the  Jews  a  feeling  of  race,  a  sense  of  cor- 
porate existence,  unique  in  its  intensity. 

But  not,  before  the  dispersion,  unique  in  essential 
qualities.  There  is  more  likeness  than  contrast  between 
the  way  \ve  English  got  our  island  and  the  way  the  Israel- 
ites got  Canaan.  We  have  not  been  noted  for  forming  a 
low  estimate  of  ourselves  in  comparison  with  foreigners, 
or  for  admitting  that  our  institutions  are  equaled  by  those 
of  any  other  people  under  the  sun.  Many  of  us  have 
thought  that  our  sea-wall  is  a  specially  divine  arrangement 
to  make  and  keep  us  a  nation  of  sea-kings  after  the  man- 
ner of  our  forefathers,  secure  against  invasion  and  able  to 
invade  other  lands  when  we  need  them,  though  they  may 
lie  on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean.  Again,  it  has  been 
held  that  we  have  a  peculiar  destiny  as  a  Protestant 
people,  not  only  able  to  bruise  the  head  of  an  idolatrous 
Christianity  in  the  midst  of  us,  but  fitted  as  possessors  of 
the  most  truth  and  the  most  tonnage  to  carry  our  purer 
religion  over  the  world  and  convert  mankind  to  our  way  of 
thinking.  The  Puritans,  asserting  their  liberty  to  restrain 
tyrants,  found  the  Hebrew  history  closely  symbolical  of 
their  feelings  and  purpose;  and  it  can  hardly  be  correct  to 
cast  the  blame  of  their  less  laudable  doings  on  the  writ- 
ings they  invoked,  since  their  opponents  made  use  of  the 


140  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

same  writings  for  different  ends,  finding  there  a  strong 
warrant  for  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  the  denunciation 
of  those  who,  like  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  took  on 
themselves  the  office  of  the  priesthood  which  belonged  of 
right  solely  to  Aaron  and  his  sons,  or,  in  other  words,  to 
men  ordained  by  the  English  bishops.  We  must  rather 
refer  the  passionate  use  of  the  Hebrew  writings  to  affinities 
of  disposition  between  our  own  race  and  the  Jewish.  Is 
it  true  that  the  arrogance  of  a  Jew  was  so  immeasurably 
beyond  that  of  a  Calvinist?  And  the  just  sympathy  and 
admiration  which  we  give  to  the  ancestors  who  resisted  the 
oppressive  acts  of  our  native  kings,  and  by  resisting  res- 
cued or  won  for  us  the  best  part  of  our  civil  and  religious 
liberties — is  it  justly  to  be  withheld  from  those  brave  and 
steadfast  men  of  Jewish  race  who  fought  and  died,  or 
strove  by  wise  administration  to  resist,  the  oppression  and 
corrupting  influences  of  foreign  tyrants,  and  by  resisting 
rescued  the  nationality  which  was  the  very  hearth  of  our 
own  religion?  At  any  rate,  seeing  that  the  Jews  were 
more  specifically  than  any  other  nation  educated  into  a 
sense  of  their  supreme  moral  value,  the  chief  matter  of 
surprise  is  that  any  other  nation  is  found  to  rival  them  in 
this  form  of  self-confidence. 

More  exceptional — less  like  the  course  of  our  own  his- 
tory— has  been  their  dispersion  and  their  subsistence  as  a 
separate  people  through  ages  in  which  for  the  most  part 
they  were  regarded  and  treated  very  much  as  beasts 
hunted  for  the  sake  of  their  skins,  or  of  a  valuable  secre- 
tion peculiar  to  their  species.  The  Jews  showed  a  talent 
for  accumulating  what  was  an  object  of  more  immediate 
desire  to  Christians  than  animal  oils  or  well-furred  skins, 
and  their  cupidity  and  avarice  were  found  at  once  particu- 
larly hateful  and  particularly  useful:  hateful  when  seen  as 
a  reason  for  punishing  thereby  mulcting  or  robbery,  useful 
when  this  retributive  process  could  be  successfully  carried 
forward.  Kings  and  emperors  naturally  were  more  alive 
to  the  usefulness  of  subjects  who  could  gather  and  yield 
money;  but  edicts  issued  to  protect  "the  King's  Jews'" 
equally  with  the  King's  game  from  being  harassed  and 
hunted  by  the  commonalty  were  only  slight  mitigations  to 
the  deplorable  lot  of  a  race  held  to  be  under  the  divine 
curse,  and  had  little  force  after  the  Crusades  began.  As 
the  slave-holders  in  the  United  States  counted  the  curse 
on  Ham  a  justification  of  negro  slavery,  so  the  curse  on 
the  Jews  was  counted  a  justification  for  hindering  them 


THE  MouEitx  HEP!  HEP!  HEP!  141 


from  pursuing  agriculture  and  handicrafts;  for  marking 
them  out  as  execrable  figures  by  a  peculiar  dress;  for  tort- 
uring them  to  make  them  part  with  their  gains,  or  for 
more  gratuitously  spitting  at  them  and  pelting  them;  for 
taking  it  as  certain  that  they  killed  and  ate  babies,  poi- 
soned the  wells,  and  took  pains  to  spread  the  plague;  for 
putting  it  to  them  whether  they  would  be  baptized  or 
burned,  and  not  failing  to  burn  and  massacre  them  when 
they  were  obstinate;  but  also  for  suspecting  them  of  dis- 
liking the  baptism  when  they  had  got  it,  and  then  burning 
them  in  punishment  of  their  insincerity;  finally,  for 
hounding  them  by  tens  on  tens  of  thousands  from  the 
homes  where  they  had  found  shelter  for  centuries,  and 
inflicting  on  them  the  horrors  of  a  new  exile  and  a  new 
dispersion.  All  this  to  avenge  the  Saviour  of  mankind, 
or  else  to  compel  these  stiff-necked  people  to  acknowledge 
ji  .Master  whose  Servants  showed  such  beneficent  effects  of 
His  teaching. 

With  a  people  so  treated  one  of  two  issues  was  possible: 
either  from  being  of  feebler  nature  than  their  persecutors, 
and  caring  more  for  ease  than  for  the  sentiments  and 
ideas  which  constituted  their  distinctive  character,  they 
would  everywhere  give  way  to  pressure  and  get  rapidly 
merged  in  the  populations  around  them  ;  or  being  en- 
dowed with  uncommon  tenacity,  physical  and  mental, 
feeling  peculiarly  the  ties  of  inheritance  both  in  blood 
and  faith,  remembering  national  glories,  trusting  in  their 
recovery,  abhorring  apostasy,  able  to  bear  all  things  and 
hope  all  things  with  a  consciousness  of  being  steadfast  to 
.spiritual  obligations,  the  kernel  of  their  number  would 
harden  into  an  inflexibility  more  and  more  insured  by 
motive  and  habit.  They  would  cherish  all  differences 
that  marked  them  off  from  their  hated  oppressors,  all 
memories  that  consoled  them  with  a  sense  of  virtual 
though  unrecognized  superiority;  and  the  separateness 
which  was  made  their  badge  of  ignominy  would  be  their 
inward  pride,  their  source  of  fortifying  defiance.  Doubt- 
less such  a  people  would  get  confirmed  in  vices.  An 
oppressive  government  and  a  persecuting  religion,  while 
breeding  vices  in  those  who  hold  power,  are  well  known 
to  breed  answering  vices  in  those  who  are  powerless  and 
suffering.  What  more  direct  plan  than  the  course  pre- 
sented by  European  history  could  have  been  pursued  in 
order  to  give  the  Jews  a  spirit  of  bitter  isolation,  of  scorn 
for  the  wolfish  hypocrisy  that  made  victims  of  them,  of 


142  THEOPHRA.STUS    SUCH. 

triumph  in  prospering  at  the  expense  of  the  blunderers 
who  stoned  them  away  from  the  open  paths  of  industry?— 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  to  encourage  in  the  less  defiant  a 
lying  conformity,  a  pretense  of  conversion  for  the  sake  of 
the  social  advantages  attached  to  baptism,  an  outward 
renunciation  of  their  hereditary  ties  with  the  lack  of  real 
love  toward  the  society  and  creed  which  exacted  this 
galling  tribute? — or  again,  in  the  most  unhappy  speci- 
mens of  the  race,  to  rear  transcendent  examples  of  odious 
vice,  reckless  instruments  of  rich  men  with  bad  propensi- 
ties, unscrupulous  grinders  of  the  alien  people  who  wanted 
to  grind  them  f 

No  wonder  the  Jews  have  their  vices:  no  wonder  if  it 
were  proved  (which  it  has  not  hitherto  appeared  to  be) 
that  some  of  them  have  a  bad  pre-eminence  in  evil,  an 
unrivaled  superfluity  of  naughtiness.  It  would  be  more 
plausible  to  make  a  wonder  of  the  virtues  which  have 
prospered  among  them  under  the  shadow  of  oppression. 
But  instead  of  dwelling  on  these,  or  treating  as  admitted 
what  any  hardy  or  ignorant  person  may  deny,  let  us  found 
simply  on  the  loud  assertions  of  the  hostile.  The  Jews,  it 
is  said,  resisted  the  expansion  of  their  own  religion  into 
Christianity;  they  were  in  the  habit  of  spitting  on  the 
cross;  they  have  held  the  name  of  Christ  to  be  Anathema. 
Who  taught  them  that?  The  men  who  made  Christianity 
a  curse  to  them;  the  men  who  made  the  name  of  Christ  a 
symbol  for  the  spirit  of  vengeance,  and,  what  was  worse, 
made  the  execution  of  the  vengeance  a  pretext  for  satisfy- 
ing their  own  savageness,  greed  and  envy;  the  men  who 
sanctioned  with  the  name  of  Christ  a  barbaric  and  blun- 
dering copy  of  pagan  fatalism  in  taking  the  words  "His 
blood  be  upon  us  and  on  our  children"  as  a  divinely 
appointed  verbal  warrant  for  wreaking  cruelty  from  gen- 
eration to  generation  on  the  people  from  whose  sacred 
writings  Christ  drew  His  teaching.  Strange  retrogression 
in  the  professors  of  an  expanded  religion,  boasting  an 
illumination  beyond  the  spiritual  doctrine  of  Hebrew 
prophets!  For  Hebrew  prophets  proclaimed  a  God  who 
demanded  mercy  rather  than  sacrifices.  The  Christians 
also  believed  that  God  delighted  not  in  the  blood  of  rams 
and  of  bulls,  but  they  apparently  conceived  Him  as  requir- 
ing for  His  satisfaction  the  sighs  and  groans,  the  blood 
and  roasted  flesh  of  men  whose  forefathers  had  misunder- 
stood the  metaphorical  character  of  prophecies  which 
spoke  of  spiritual  pre-eminence  under  the  figure  of  a 


THE   MODERN   HE?!    HE?!    HEP!  143 

material  kingdom.  Was  this  the  method  by  which  Christ 
desired  His  title  to  the  Messiahship  to  be  commended  to 
the  hearts  and  understandings  of  the  nation  in  which  He 
was  horn?  .Many  of  His  sayings  bear  the  stamp  of  that 
patriotism  which  places  fellow-countrymen  in  the  inner 
riivle  of  affection  and  duty.  And  did  the  words,  "  Father, 
forgive  them,  they  know  not  what  they  do,"  refer  only  to 
the  centurion  and  his  band,  a  tacit  exception  being  made 
of  every  Hebrew  there  present  from  the  mercy  of  the 
Father  and  the  compassion  of  the  Son?  Nay,  more,  of 
every  Hebrew  yet  to  come  who  remained  unconverted 
after  hearing  of  His  claim  to  the  Messiahship,  not  from 
His  own  lips  or  those  of  His  native  apostles,  but  from  the 
lips  of  alien  men  whom  cross,  creed,  and  baptism  had  left 
cruel,  rapacious,  and  debauched?  It  is  more  reverent  to 
Christ  to  believe  that  He  must  have  approved  the  Jewish 
martyrs  who  deliberately  chose  to  be  burned  or  massacred 
rather  than  be  guilty  of  a  blaspheming  lie,  more  than  He 
approved  the  rabble  of  crusaders  who  robbed  and  murdered 
them  in  His  name. 

But  these  remonstrances  seem  to  have  no  direct  appli- 
cation to  personages  who  take  up  the  attitude  of  philo- 
sophic thinkers  and  discriminating  critics,  professedly 
accepting  Christianity  from  a  rational  point  of  view  as  a 
vehicle  of  the  highest  religious  and  moral  truth,  and  con- 
demning the  Jews  on  the  ground  that  they  are  obstinate 
adherents  of  an  outworn  creed,  maintain  themselves  in 
moral  alienation  from  the  peoples  with  whom  they  share 
citizenship,  and  are  destitute  of  real  interest  in  the  wel- 
fare of  the  community  and  state  with  which  they  are  thus 
identified.  These  and-  Judaic  advocates  usually  belong  to 
a  party  which  has  felt  itself  glorified  in  winning  for  Jews, 
as  well  as  Dissenters  and  Catholics,  the  full  privileges  of 
citizenship,  laying  open  to  them  every  path  to  distinction. 
At  one  time  the  voice  of  this  party  urged  that  differences 
of  crc-ed  were  made  dangerous  only  by  the  denial  of  citi- 
zenship— that  you  must  make  a  man  a  citizen  before  he 
could  feel  like  one.  At  present,  apparently,  this  confi- 
dence has  been  succeeded  by  a  sense  of  mistake:  there  is 
a  regret  that  no  limiting  clauses  were  insisted  on,  such  as 
would  have  hindered  the  Jews  from  coming  too  far  and  in 
too  large  proportion  along  those  opened  pathways:  and 
the  Roumanians  are  thought  to  have  shown  an  enviable 
wisdom  in  giving  them  as  little  chance  as  possible.  But 
then,  the  reflection  occurring  that  some  of  the  most  ob- 


144  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

jectionable  Jews  are  baptized  Christians,  it  is  obvious  that 
such  clauses  would  have  been  insufficient,  and  the  doctrine 
that  you  can  turn  a  Jew  into  a  good  Christian  is  emphat- 
ically retracted.  But  clearly,  these  liberal  gentlemen,  too 
late  enlightened  by  disagreeable  events,  must  yield  the 
palm  of  wise  foresight  to  those  who  argued  against  them 
long  ago;  and  it  is  a  striking  spectacle  to  witness  minds  so 
panting  for  advancement  in  some  directions  that  they  are 
ready  to  force  it  on  an  unwilling  society,  in  this  instance 
despairingly  recurring  to  mediaeval  types  of  thinking — 
insisting  that  the  Jews  are  made  viciously  cosmopolitan 
by  holding  the  world's  money-bag,  that  for  them  all 
national  interests  are  resolved  into  the  algebra  of  loans, 
that  they  have  suffered  an  inward  degradation  stamping 
them  as  morally  inferior,  and — "serve  them  right,"  since 
they  rejected  Christianity.  All  which  is  mirrored  in  an 
analogy,  namely,  that  of  the  Irish,  also  a  servile  race,  who 
have  rejected  Protestantism  though  it  has  been  repeatedly 
urged  on  them  by  fire  and  sword  and  penal  laws,  and 
whose  place  in  the  moral  scale  may  be  judged  by  our  ad- 
vertisements, where  the  clause,  "No  Irish  need  apply," 
parallels  the  sentence  which  for  many  polite  persons  sums 
up  the  question  of  Judaism — "  I  never  did  like  the  Jews." 
It  is  certainly  worth  considering  whether  an  expatriated, 
denationalized  race,  used  for  siges  to  live  among  antipa- 
thetic populations,  must  not  inevitably  lack  some  condi- 
tions of  nobleness.  If  they  drop  that  separateness  which 
is  made  their  reproach,  they  may  be  in  danger  of  laps- 
ing into  a  cosmopolitan  indifference  equivalent  to  cyni- 
cism, and  of  missing  that  inward  identification  with  the 
nationality  immediately  around  them  which  might  make 
some  amends  for  their  inherited  privation.  No  dispas- 
sionate observer  can  deny  this  danger.  Why,  our  own 
countrymen  who  take  to  living  abroad  without  purpose  or 
function  to  keep  up  their  sense  of  fellowship  in  the  affairs 
of  their  own  land  are  rarely  good  specimens  of  moral 
healthiness;  still,  the  consciousness  of  having  a  native 
country,  the  birthplace  of  common  memories  and  habits 
of  mind,  existing  like  a  parental  hearth  quitted  but 
beloved;  the  dignity  of  being  included  in  a  people  which 
has  a  part  in  the  comity  of  nations  and  the  growing  fed- 
eration of  the  world;  that  sense  of  special  belonging 
which  is  the  root  of  human  virtues,  both  public  and 
private, — all  these  spiritual  links  may  preserve  migratory 
Englishmen  from  the  worst  consequences  of  their  volnn- 


THE   MODERN    HE?!    HE?!    HEP!  146 

tary  dispersion.  Unquestionably  the  Jews,  having  been 
more  than  any  other  race  exposed  to  the  adverse  moral 
influences  of  alienism,  must,  both  in  individuals  and  in 
groups,  have  suffered  some  corresponding  moral  degrada- 
tioii;  but  in  fact  they  have  escaped  with  less  of  abjectness 
and  less  of  hard  hostility  toward  the  nations  whose  hand 
has  boon  against  them,  than  could  have  happened  in  the 
case  of  a  people  who  had  neither  their  adhesion  to  a 
separate  religion  founded  on  historic  memories,  nor  their 
characteristic  family  affectionateness.  Tortured,  flogged, 
spit  upon,  the  corpus  vile  on  which  rage  or  wantonness 
vented  themselves  with  impunity,  their  name  flung  at 
them  as  an  opprobrium  by  superstition,  hatred,  and  con- 
tempt, they  have  remained  proud  of  their  origin.  Does 
any  one  call  this  an  evil  pride?  Perhaps  he  belongs  to 
that  order  of  man  who,  while  he  has  a  democratic  dislike 
to  dukes  and  earls,  wants  to  make  believe  that  his  father 
was  an  idle  gentleman,  when  in  fact  he  was  an  honorable 
artisan,  or  who  would  feel  flattered  to  be  taken  for  other 
than  an  Englishman.  It  is  possible  to  be  too  arrogant 
about  our  blood  or  our  calling,  but  that  arrogance  is  virtue 
compared  with  such  mean  pretense.  The  pride  which 
identifies  us  with  a  great  historic  body  is  a  humanizing, 
elevating  habit  of  mind,  inspiring  sacrifices  of  individual 
comfort,  gain,  or  other  selfish  ambition,  for  the  sake  of 
that  ideal  whole;  and  no  man  swayed  by  such  a  sentiment 
am  become  completely  abject.  That  a  Jew  of  Smyrna, 
where  a  whip  is  carried  by  passengers  ready  to  flog  off  the 
too  officious  specimens  of  his  race,  can  still  be  proud  to 
say,  "I  am  a  Jew,"  is  surely  a  fact  to  awaken  admiration 
in  a  mind  capable  of  understanding  what  we  may  call  the 
ideal  forces  in  human  history.  And  again,  a  varied, 
impartial  observation  of  the  Jews  in  different  countries 
tends  to  the  impression  that  they  have  a  predominant 
kindliness  which  must  have  been  deeply  ingrained  in  the 
constitution  of  their  race  to  have  outlasted  the  ages  of 
persecution  and  oppression.  The  concentration  of  their 
joys  in  domestic  life  has  kept  up  in  them  the  capacity  of 
tenderness:  the  pity  for  the  fatherless  and  the  widow,  the 
care  for  the  women  and  the  little  ones,  blent  intimately 
with  their  religion,  is  a  well  of  mercy  that  cannot  long  or 
widely  be  pent  up  by  exclusiveness.  And  the  kindliness 
of  the  Jew  overflows  the  line  of  division  between  him  and 
the  Gentile.  On  the  whole,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
phenomena  in  the  history  of  this  scattered  people,  made 
10 


146  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

for  ages  "a  scorn  and  a  hissing,"  is,  that  after  being  sub- 
jected to  this  process,  which  might  have  been  expected  to 
be  in  every  sense  deteriorating  and  vitiating,  they  have 
come  out  of  it  (in  any  estimate  which  allows  for  numer- 
ical proportion)  rivaling  the  nations  of  all  European 
countries  in  healthiness  and  beauty  of  physique,  in  prac- 
tical ability,  in  scientific  and  artistic  aptitude,  and  in  some 
forms  of  ethical  value.  A  significant  indication  of  their 
natural  rank  i$  seen  in  the  fact  that  at  this  moment,  the 
leader  of  the  Liberal  party  in  Germany  is  a  Jew,  the 
leader  of  the  Republican  party  in  France  is  a  Jew,  and 
the  head  of  the  Conservative  ministry  in  England  is  a  Jew. 

And  here  it  is  that  we  find  the  ground  for  the  obvious 
jealousy  which  is  now  stimulating  the  revived  expression 
of  old  antipathies.  "The  Jews/'  it  is  felt,  "have  a 
dangerous  tendency  to  get  the  uppermost  places  not  only 
in  commerce  but  in  political  life.  Their  monetary  hold 
on  governments  is  tending  to  perpetuate  in  leading  Jews  a 
spirit  of  universal  alienism  (euphemistically  called  cosmo- 
politanism), even  where  the  West  has  given  them  a  full 
share  in  civil  and  political  rights.  A  people  with  oriental 
sunlight  in  their  blood,  yet  capable  of  being  everywhere 
acclimatized,  they  have  a  force  and  toughness  which 
enables  them  to  carry  off  the  best  prizes;  and  their  wealth 
is  likely  to  put  half  the  seats  in  Parliament  at  their  dis- 
posal." 

There  is  truth  in  these  views  of  Jewish  social  and  polit- 
ical relations.  But  it  is  rather  too  late  for  liberal  pleaders 
to  urge  them  in  a  merely  vituperative  sense.  l)o  they 
propose  as  a  remedy  for  the  impending  danger  of  our 
healthier  national  influences  getting  overriden  by  Jewish 
predominance,  that  we  should  repeal  our  emancipatory 
laws?  Not  all  the  Germanic  immigrants  who  have  been 
settling  among  us  for  generations,  and  are  still  pouring  in 
to  settle,  are  Jews,  but  thoroughly  Teutonic  and  more  or 
less  Christian  craftsmen,  mechanicians,  or  skilled  and 
erudite  functionaries;  and  the  Semitic  Christians  who 
swarm  among  us  are  dangerously  like  their  unconverted 
brethren  in  complexion,  persistence,  and  wealth.  Then 
there  are  the  Greeks  who,  by  the  help  of  Phoenician  blood 
or  otherwise,  are  objectionably  strong  in  the  city.  Some 
judges  think  that  the  Scotch  are  more  numerous  and  pros- 
perous here  in  the  South  than  is  quite  for  the  good  of  us 
Southerners;  and  the  early  inconvenience  felt  under  the 
Stuarts  of  being  quartered  upon  by  a  hungry,  hard- work- 


THE   MODERN   HE?!    HE?!    HEP!  147 

ing  people  with  a  distinctive  accent  and  form  of  religion, 
:m<!  higher  cheek-bones  than  English  taste  requires,  has 
not  yet  been  quite  neutralized.  As  for  the  Irish,  it  is  felt 
in  high  quarters  that  we  have  always  been  too  lenient 
toward  them;  —  at  least,  if  they  had  been  harried  a  little 
more  there  might  not  have  been  so  many  of  them  on  the 
English  pre«s,  of  which  they  divide  the  power  with  the 
Scutch,  thus  driving  many  Englishmen  to  honest  and 
incloqueut  labor. 

So  far  shall  we  be  carried  if  we  go  in  search  of  devices 
to  hinder  people  of  other  blood  than  our  own  from  getting 
the  advantage  of  dwelling  among  us. 

Let  it  be  admitted  that  ib  is  a  calamity  to  the  English, 
as  to  any  other  great  historic  people,  to  undergo  a  prema- 
ture  fusion  with  immigrants  of  alien  blood;  that  its  dis- 
tinctive national  characteristics  should  be  in  danger  of 
obliteration  by  the  predominating  quality  of  foreign  set- 
tlers. I  not  only  admit  this,  I  am  ready  to  unite  in 
groaning  over  the  threatened  danger.  To  one  who  loves 
his  native  language,  who  would  delight  to  keep  our  rich 
and  harmonious  English  undefiled  by  foreign  accent, 
foreign  intonation,  and  those  foreign  tinctures  of  verbal 
meaning  which  tend  to  confuse  all  writing  and  discourse, 
it  is  an  affliction  as  harassing  as  the  climate,  that  on  our 
stage,  in  our  studios,  at  our  public  and  private  gatherings, 
in  our  offices,  warehouses,  and  workshops,  we  must  expect 
to  hear  our  beloved  English  with  its  words  clipped,  its 
vowels  stretched  and  twisted,  its  phrases  of  acquiescence 
and  politeness,  of  cordiality,  dissidence  or  argument,  deliv- 
ered always  in  the  wrong  tones,  like  ill-rendered  melodies, 
marred  beyond  recognition;  that  there  should  be  a  general 
ambition  to  speak  every  language  except  our  mother 
English,  which  persons  "of  style"  are  not  ashamed  of 
corrupting  with  slang,  false  foreign  equivalents,  and  a 
pronunciation  that  crushes  out  all  color  from  the  vowels 
and  jams  them  between  jostling  consonants.  An  ancient 
Greek  might  not  like  to  be  resuscitated  for  the  sake  of 
hearing  Homer  read  in  our  universities,  still  he  would  at 
least  find  more  instructive  marvels  in  other  developments 
to  be  witnessed  at  those  institutions;  but  a  modern 
Englishman  is  invited  from  his  after-dinner  repose  to  hear 
Shakespeare  delivered  under  circumstances  which  offer  no 
other  novelty  than  some  novelty  of  false  intonation,  some 
new  distribution  of  strong  emphasis  on  prepositions,  some 
new  misconception  of  a  familiar  idiom.  Well!  it  is  our 


148  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

inertness  that  is  in  fault,  our  carelessness  of  excellence, 
our  willing  ignorance  of  the  treasures  that  lie  in  our 
national  heritage,  while  we  are  agape  after  what  is  foreign, 
though  it  may  be  only  a  vile  imitation  of  what  is  native. 

This  marring  of  our  speech,  however,  is  a  minor  evil 
compared  with  what  must  follow  from  the  predominance 
of  wealth-acquiring  immigrants,  whose  appreciation  of  our 
political  and'  social  life  must  often  be  as  approximative 
or  fatally  erroneous  as  their  delivery  of  our  language. 
But  take  the  worst  issues  —  what  can  we  do  to  hinder 
them?  Are  we  to  adopt  the  exclusiveness  for  which  we 
have  punished  the  Chinese?  Are  we  to  tear  the  glorious 
flag  of  hospitality  which  has  made  our  freedom  the  world- 
wide blessing  of  the  oppressed?  It  is  not  agreeable  to  find 
foreign  accents  and  stumbling  locutions  passing  from  the 
piquant  exception  to  the  general  rule  of  discourse.  But  to 
urge  on  that  account  that  we  should  spike  away  the 
peaceful  foreigner,  would  be  a  view  of  international  rela- 
tions not  in  the  long  run  favorable  to  the  interests  of  our 
fellow-countrymen;  for  we  are  at  least  equal  to  the  races 
we  call  obtrusive  in  the  disposition  to  settle  wherever 
money  is  to  be  made  and  cheaply  idle  living  to  be  found. 
In  meeting  the  national  evils  which  are  brought  upon  us 
by  the  onward  course  of  the  world,  there  is  often  no  more 
immediate  hope  or  recourse  than  that  of  striving  after 
fuller  national  excellence,  which  must  consist  in  the 
moulding  of  more  excellent  individual  natives.  The  tend- 
ency of  things  is  toward  the  quicker  or  slower  fusion  of 
races.  It  is  impossible  to  arrest  this  tendency:  all  we  can 
do  is  to  moderate  its  course  so  as  to  hinder  it  from  degrad- 
ing the  moral  status  of  societies  by  a  too  rapid  effacement 
of  those  national  traditions  and  customs  which  are  the 
language  of  the  national  genius  —  the  deep  suckers  of 
healthy  sentiment.  Such  moderating  and  guidance  of 
inevitable  movement  is  worthy  of  all  effort.  And  it  is  in 
this  sense  that  the  modern  insistence  on  the  idea  of  nation- 
alities has  value.  That  any  people  at  once  distinct  and 
coherent  enough  to  form  a  state  should  be  held  in  subjec- 
tion by  an  alien  antipathetic  government  has  been  becoming 
more  and  more  a  ground  of  sympathetic  indignation;  and 
in  virtue  of  this,  at  least  one  great  State  has  been  added 
to  European  councils.  Nobody  now  complains  of  the 
result  in  this  case,  though  far-sighted  persons  see  the  need 
to  limit  analogy  by  discrimination.  We  have  to  consider 
who  are  the  stifled  people  and  who  the  stiflers  before  we 


THE   MODERN    HEP!    HE?!    HEP!  149 

can  be  sure  of  our  ground.  The  only  point  in  this  con- 
nection on  which  Englishmen  are  agreed  is,  that  England 
itself  shall  not  be  subject  to  foreign  rule.  The  fiery 
resolve  to  resist  invasion,  though  with  an  improvised 
array  of  pitchforks,  is  felt  to  be  virtuous,  and  to  be  worthy 
of  a  historic  people.  Why?  Because  there  is  a  national 
life  in  our  veins.  Because  there  is  something  specifically 
English  which  we  feel  to  be  supremely  worth  striving  for, 
worth  dying  for,  rather  than  living  to  renounce  it.  Be- 
cause we  too  have  our  share — perhaps  a  principal  share  — 
in  that  spirit  of  separateness  which  has  not  yet  done  its 
work  in  the  education  of  mankind,  which  has  created  the 
varying  genius  of  nations,  and,  like  the  Muses,  is  the 
offspring  of  memory. 

Here,  as  everywhere  else,  the  human  task  seems  to  be 
the  discerning  and  adjustment  of  opposite  claims.  But 
the  end  can  hardly  be  achieved  by  urging  contradictory 
reproaches,  and  instead  of  laboring  after  discernment  as  a 
preliminary  to  intervention,  letting  our  zeal  burst  forth 
according  to  a  capricious  selection,  first  determined  acci- 
dentally and  afterward  justified  by  personal  predilection. 
Not  only  John  Gilpin  and  his  wife,  or  Edwin  and  Ange- 
lina, seem  to  be  of  opinion  that  their  preference  or  dislike 
of  Russians,  Servians,  or  Greeks,  consequent,  perhaps,  on 
hotel  adventures,  has  something  to  do  with  the  merits  of 
the  Eastern  question;  even  in  a  higher  range  of  intellect 
and  enthitsiasm  we  find  a  distribution  of  sympathy  or  pity 
for  sufferers  of  different  blood  or  votaries  of  differing 
.religions,  strangely  unaccountable  on  any  other  ground 
than  a  fortuitous  direction  of  study  or  trivial  circum- 
stances of  travel.  With  some  even  admirable  persons,  one 
is  never  quite  sure  of  any  particular  being  included  under 
a  general  term.  A  provincial  physician,  it  is  said,  once 
ordering  a  lady  patient  not  to  eat  salad,  was  asked  plead- 
ingly by  the  affectionate  husband  whether  she  might  eat 
lettuce,  or  cresses,  or  radishes.  The  physician  had  too 
rashly  believed  in  the  comprehensiveness  of  the  word 
"  salad,"  just  as  we,  if  not  enlightened  by  experience, 
might  believe  in  the  all-embracing  breadth  of  "  sympathy 
with  the  injured  and  oppressed."  What  mind  can  exhaust 
the  grounds  of  exception  which  lie  in  each  particular  case? 
There  is  understood  to  be  a  peculiar  odor  from  the  negro 
body,  and  we  know  that  some  persons,  too  rationalistic 
to  feel  bound  by  the  curse  on  Ham,  used  to  hint  very 


150  THEOPHKASTUS    SUCH. 

strongly  that  this  odor  determined  the  question  on  the  side 
of  negro  slavery. 

And  this  is  the  usual  level  of  thinking  in  polite  society 
concerning  the  Jews.  Apart  from  theological  purposes,  it 
seems  to  be  held  surprising  that  anybody  should  take  an 
interest  in  the  history  of  a  people  whose  literature  has 
furnished  all  our  devotional  language;  and  if  any  refer- 
ence is  made  to  their  past  or  future  destinies  some  hearer 
is  sure  to  state  as  a  relevant  fact  which  may  assist  our 
judgment,  that  she,  for  her  part,  is  not  fond  of  them, 
having  known  a  Mr.  Jacobson  who  was  very  unpleasant,  or 
that  he,  for  his  part,  thinks  meanly  of  them  as  a  race, 
though  on  inquiry  you  find  that  he  is  so  little  acquainted 
with  their  characteristics  that  he  is  astonished  to  learn 
how  many  persons  whom  he  has  blindly  admired  and 
applauded  are  Jews  to  the  backbone.  Again,  men  who 
consider  themselves  in  the  very  van  of  modern  advance- 
ment, knowing  history  and  the  latest  philosophies  of 
history,  indicate  their  contemptuous  surprise  that  any  one 
should  entertain  the  destiny  of  the  Jews  as  a  worthy  subject, 
by  referring  to  Moloch  and  their  own  agreement  with  the 
theory  that  the  religion  of  Jehovah  was  merely  a  trans- 
formed Moloch- worship,  while  in  the  same  breath  they  are 
glorifying  "civilization"  as  a  transformed  tribal  existence 
of  which  some  lineaments  are  traceable  in  grim  marriage 
customs  of  the  native  Australians.  Are  these  erudite 
persons  prepared  to  insist  that  the-name  "Father"  should 
no  longer  have  any  sanctity  for  us,  because  in  their  view  of 
likelihood  our  Aryan  ancestors  were  mere  improvers  on  a 
state  of  things  in  which  nobody  knew  his  own  father? 

For  less  theoretic  men,  ambitious  to  be  regarded  as 
practical  politicians,  the  value  of  the  Hebrew  race  has  been 
measured  by  their  unfavorable  opinion  of  a  prime  minister 
who  is  a  Jew  by  lineage.  But  it  is  possible  to  form  a  very 
ugly  opinion  as  to  the  scrupulousness  of  Walpole,  or  of 
Chatham;  and  in  any  case  I  think  Englishmen  would  refuse 
to  accept  the  character  and  doings  of  those  eighteenth  cent- 
ury statesmen  as  the  standard  of  value  for  the  English 
people  and  the  part  they  have  to  play  in  the  fortunes  of 
mankind. 

If  we  are  to  consider  the  future  of  the  Jews  at  all,  it 
seems  reasonable  to  take  as  a  preliminary  question:  Are 
they  destined  to  complete  fusion  with  the  peoples  among 
whom  they  are  dispersed,  losing  every  remnant  of  a  dis- 
tinctive consciousness  as  Jews;  or,  are  there  in  the  breadth 


THE    MODERN    HE!'!    HEP!    HEP!  151 

and  intensity  with  which  the  feeling  of  separateness,  or 
what  we  may  call  the  organized  memory  of  a  national  con- 
sciousness, actually  exists  in  the  world-wide  Jewish  com- 
munities— the  seven  millions  scattered  from  east  to  west — 
and  again,  are  there  in  the  political  relations  of  the  world, 
the  conditions  present  or  approaching  for  the  restora- 
tion of  a  Jewish  state  planted  on  the  old  ground  as  a 
centre  of  national  feeling,  a  source  of  dignifying  protec- 
tion, a  special  channel  for  special  energies  which  may  con- 
tribute some  added  form  of  national  genius,  and  an 
added  voice  in  the  councils  of  the  world? 

They  are  among  us  everywhere;  it  is  useless  to  say  we 
are  not  fond  of  them.  Perhaps  we  are  not  fond  of  prole- 
taries and  their  tendency  to  form  Unions,  but  the  world  is 
not  therefore  to  be  rid  of  them.  If  we  wish  to  free  our- 
selves from  the  inconveniences  that  we  have  to  complain 
of.  whether  in  proletaries  or  in  Jews,  our  best  course  is  to 
encourage  all  means  of  improving  these  neighbors  who 
elbow  us  in  a  thickening  crowd,  and  of  sending  their 
incommodious  energies  into  beneficent  channels.  Why 
are  we  so  eager  for  the  dignity  of  certain  populations  of 
whom  perhaps  we  have  never  seen  a  single  specimen,  and 
of  whose  history,  legend  or  literature  we  have  been  con- 
tentedly ignorant  for  ages,  while  we  sneer  at  the  notion  of 
a  renovated  national  dignity  for  the  Jews,  whose  ways  of 
thinking  and  whose  very  verbal  forms  are  on  our  lips  in 
every  prayer  which  we  end  with  an  amen?  Some  of  us 
consider  this  question  dismissed  when  they  have  said 
that  the  wealthiest  Jews  have  no  desire  to  forsake  their 
European  palaces,  and  go  to  live  in  Jerusalem.  But  in  a 
return  from  exile,  in  the  restoration  of  a  people,  the  ques- 
tion is  not  whether  certain  rich  men  will  choose  to  remain 
behind,  but  whether  there  will  be  found  worthy  men  who 
will  choose  to  lead  the  return.  Plenty  of  prosperous  Jews 
remained  in  Babylon  when  Ezra  marshaled  his  band  of 
forty  thousand  and  began  a  new  glorious  epoch  in  the  his- 
tory of  his  race,  making  the  preparation  for  that  epoch  in 
the  history  of  the  world  which  has  been  held  glorious 
enough  to  be  dated  from  forevermore.  The  hinge  of 
possibility  is  simply  the  existence  of  an  adequate  commu- 
nity of  feeling  as  well  as  widespread  need  in  the  Jewish 
race,  and  the  hope  that  among  its  finer  specimens  there 
may  arise  some  men  of  instruction  and  ardent  public 
spirit,  some  new  Ezras,  some  modern  Maccabees,  who  will 
know  how  to  use  all  favoring  outward  conditions,  how  to 


152  THEOPHRASTUS    SUCH. 

triumph  by  heroic  example  over  the  indifference  of  their 
fellows  and  the  scorn  of  their  foes,  and  will  steadfastly  set 
their  faces  toward  making  their  people  once  more  one 
among  the  nations. 

Formerly,  evangelical  orthodoxy  was  prone  to  dwell  on 
the  fulfillment  of  prophecy  in  the  "restoration  of  the 
Jews."  Such  interpretation  of  the  prophets  is  less  in 
vogue  now.  The  dominant  mode  is  to  insist  on  a  Chris- 
tianity that  disowns  its  origin,  that  is  not  a  substantial 
growth  having  a  genealogy,  but  is  a  vaporous  reflex  of 
modern  notions.  The  Christ  of  Matthew  had  the  heart  of 
a  Jew — "  Go  ye  first  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of 
Israel."  The  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  had  the  heart  of  a 
Jew:  "  For  I  could  wish  that  myself  were  accursed  from 
Christ  for  my  brethren,  my  kinsmen  according  to  the  flesh: 
who  are  Israelites;  to  whom  pertaineth  the  adoption,  and 
the  glory,  and  the  covenants,  and  the  giving  of  the  law 
and  the  service  of  God,  and  the  promises;  whose  are  the 
fathers,  and  of  whom  as  concerning  the  flesh  Christ  came." 
Modern  apostles,  extolling  Christianity,  are  found  using  a 
different  tone:  they  prefer  the  mediaeval  cry  translated 
into  modern  phrase.  But  the  mediaeval  cry,  too,  was  in 
substance  very  ancient — more  ancient  than  the  days  of 
Augustus.  Pagans  in  successive  ages  said,  ' '  These  people 
are  unlike  us,  and  refuse  to  be  made  like  us:  let  us  punish 
them."  The  Jews  were  steadfast  in  their  separateness, 
and  through  that  separateness  Christianity  was  born.  A 
modern  book  on  Liberty  has  maintained  that  from  the 
freedom  of  individual  men  to  persist  in  idiosyncracies  the 
world  may  be  enriched.  Why  should  we  not  apply  this 
argument  to  the  idiosyncrasy  of  a  nation,  and  pause  in  our 
haste  to  hoot  it  down?  There  is  still  a  great  function  for 
the  steadfastness  of  the  Jew:  not  that  he  should  shut  out 
the  utmost  illumination  which  knowledge  can  throw  on 
his  national  history,  but  that  he  should  cherish  the  store 
of  inheritance  which  that  history  has  left  him.  Every 
Jew  should  be  conscious  that  he  is  one  of  a  multitude  pos- 
sessing common  objects  of  piety  in  the  immortal  achieve- 
ments and  immortal  sorrows  of  ancestors  who  have 
transmitted  to  them  a  physical  and  mental  type  strong 
enough,  eminent  enough  in  faculties,  pregnant  enough 
with  peculiar  promise,  to  constitute  a  new  beneficent  indi- 
viduality among  the  nations,  and,  by  confuting  the  tradi- 
tions of  scorn,  nobly  avenge  the  wrongs  done  to  tb.eir 
Fathers. 


THE    MODERN    HEP!    HE?!    HEP!  153 

There  is  a  sense  iu  which  the  worthy  child  of  a  nation 
that  has  brought  forth  illustrious  prophets,  .high  and 
unique  among  the  poets  of  the  world,  is  bound  by  their 
visions. 

Is  bound? 

Yes,  for  the  effective  bond  of  human  action  is  feeling, 
and  the  worthy  child  of  a  people  owning  the  triple  name 
of  Hebrew,  Israelite,  and  Jew,  feels  his  kinship  with  the 
glories  and  the  sorrows,  the  degradation  and  the  possible 
renovation  of  his  national  family. 

Will  any  one  teach  the  nullification  of  this  feeling  and 
call  his  doctrine  a  philosophy?  He  will  teach  a  blinding 
superstition — the  superstition  that  a  theory  of  human  well- 
being  can  be  constructed  in  disregard  of  the  influences 
whicn  have  made  us  human. 


THE  END. 


OTHER  POEMS,  OLD  AND  NEW 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 


WHEN  Cain  was  driven  from  Jehovah's  land 

He  wandered  eastward,  seeking  some  far  strand 

Ruled  by  kind  gods  who  asked  no  offerings 

Save  pure  field-fruits,  as  aromatic  things, 

To  feed  the  subtler  sense  of  frames  divine 

That  lived  on  fragrance  for  their  food  and  wine: 

Wild  joyous  gods,  who  winked  at  faults  and  folly, 

And  could  be  pitiful  and  melancholy. 

He  never  had  a  doubt  that  such  gods  were; 

He  looked  within,  and  saw  them  mirrored  there. 

Some  think  he  came  at  last  to  Tartary, 

And  some  to  Ind;  but,  howsoe'er  it  be, 

His  staff  he  planted  where  sweet  waters  ran, 

And  in  that  home  of  Cain  the  Arts  began. 

Man's  life  was  spacious  in  the  early  world: 
It  paused,  like  some  slow  ship  with  sail  unfurled 
Waiting  in  seas  by  scarce  a  wavelet  curled; 
Beheld  the  slow  star-paces  of  the  skies, 
And  grew  from  strength  to  strength  through  centuries; 
Saw  infant  trees  fill  out  their  giant  limbs, 
And  heard  a  thousand  times  the  sweet  birds'  marriage 
hymns. 

In  Cain's  young  city  none  had  heard  of  Death 
Save  him,  the  founder;  and  it  was  his  faith 
That  here,  away  from  harsh  Jehovah's  law, 
Man  was  immortal,  since  no  halt  or  flaw 
In  Cain's  own  frame  betrayed  six  hundred  years, 
But  dark  as  pines  that  autumn  never  sears 
His  locks  thronged  backward  as  he  ran,  his  frame 
Rose  like  the  orbed  sun  each  morn  the  same, 
Lake-mirrored  to  his  gaze;  and  that  red  brand, 
The  scorching  impress  of  Jehovah's  hand, 
Was  still  clear-edged  to  his  unwearied  eye, 
Its  secret  firm  in  time-fniuirht.  memory. 

157 


158  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

He  said,  "  My  happy  offspring  shall  not  know 
That  the  red  life  from  out  a  man  may  flow 
When  smitten  by  his  brother/'     True,  his  race 
Bore  each  one  stamped  upon  his  new-born  face 
A  copy  of  the  brand  no  whit  less  clear; 
But  every  mother  held  that  little  copy  dear. 

Thus  generations  in  glad  idlesse  throve, 
Nor  hunted  prey,  nor  with  each  other  strove; 
For  clearest  springs  were  plenteous  in  the  land, 
And  gourds  for  cups;  the  ripe  fruits  sought  the  hand, 
Bending  the  laden  boughs  with  fragrant  gold; 
And  for  their  roofs  and  garments  wealth  untold 
Lay  everywhere  in  grasses  and  broad  leaves: 
They  labored  gently,  as  a  maid  who  weaves 
Her  hair  in  mimic  mats,  and  pauses  oft 
And  strokes  across  her  palm  the  tresses  soft, 
Then  peeps  to  watch  the  poised  butterfly, 
Or  little  burdened  ants  that  homeward  hie. 
Time  was  but  leisure  to  their  lingering  thought, 
There  was  no  need  for  haste  to  finish  aught; 
But  sweet  beginnings  were  repeated  still 
Like  infant  babblings  that  no  task  fulfill; 
For  love,  that  loved  not  change,  constrained  the  simple 
will. 

Till,  hurling  stones  in  mere  athletic  joy. 
Strong  Lamech  struck  and  killed  his  fairest  boy, 
And  tried  to  wake  him  with  the  tenderest  cries, 
And  fetched  arid  held  before  the  glazed  eyes 
The  things  they  best  had  loved  to  look  upon; 
But  never  glance  or  smile  or  sigh  he  won. 
The  generations  stood  around  those  twain 
Helplessly  gazing  till  their  father  Cain 
Parted  the  press,  and  said,  "He  will  not  wake; 
This  is  the  endless  sleep,  and  we  must  make 
A  bed  deep  down  for  him  beneath  the  sod; 
For  know  my  sons,  there  is  a  mighty  God 
Angry  with  all  man's  race,  but  most  with  me. 
I  fled  from  out  His  laud  in  vain! — 'tis  He 
Who  came  and  slew  the  lad,  for  He  has  found 
This  home  of  ours,  and  we  shall  all  be  bound 
By  the  harsh  bands  of  His  most  cruel  will, 
Which  any  moment  may  some  dear  one  kill. 


THE    LEGEND   OF   JUBAL  159 

Nay,  though  we  live  for  countless  moons,  at  last 

We  and  all  ours  shall  die  like  summers  past. 

This  is  Jehovah's  will,  and  He  is  strong, 

I  thought  the  way  I  traveled  was  too  long 

For  Him  to  follow  me:  my  thought  was  vain! 

He  walks  unseen,  but  leaves  a  track  of  pain, 

Pale  Death  His  footprint  is,  and  He  will  come  again  I" 

And  a  new  spirit  from  that  hour  came  o'er 

The  race  of  Cain:  soft  idlesse  was  no  more 

But  even  the  sunshine  had  a  heart  of  care, 

Smiling  with  hidden  dread — a  mother  fair 

Who  folding  to  her  breast  a  dying  child 

Beams  with  feigned  joy  that  but  makes  sadness  mild. 

Death  was  now  lord  of  Life,  and  at  his  word 

Time,  vague  as  air  before,  new  terrors  stirred, 

With  measured  wing  now  audibly  arose 

Throbbing  through  all  things  to  some  unknown  close. 

Now  glad  Content  by  clutching  Haste  was  torn, 

And  Work  grew  eager,  and  Device  was  born. 

It  seemed  the  light  was  never  loved  before, 

Now  each  man  said,  '"Twill  go  and  come  no  more/' 

No  budding  branch,  no  pebble  from  the  brook, 

No  form,  no  shadow,  but  new  dearness  took 

From  the  one  thought  that  life  must  have  an  end; 

And  the  last  parting  now  began  to  send 

Diffusive  dread  through  love  and  wedded  bliss, 

Thrilling  them  into  finer  tenderness. 

Then  Memory  disclosed  her  face  divine, 

That  like  the  calm  nocturnal  lights  doth  shine 

Within  the  soul,  and  shows  the  sacred  graves, 

And  shows  the  presence  that  no  sunlight  craves, 

No  space,  no  warmth,  but  moves  among  them  all; 

Gone  and  yet  here,  and  coming  at  each  call, 

With  ready  voice  and  oyes  that  understand, 

And  lips  that  ask  a  kiss,  and  dear  responsive  hand. 

Tims  to  Cain's  race  death  was  tear-watered  seed 
Of  various  life  and  action-shaping  need. 
But  chief  the  sons  of  Lamech  felt  the  stings 
Of  new  ambition,  and  the  force  that  springs 
In  passion  beating  on  the  shores  of  fate. 
They  said,  "There  comes  a  night  when  all  too  late 
The  mind  shall  long  to  prompt  the  achieving  hand< 
The  eager  thought  behind  closed  portals  stand, 


160  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

And  the  last  wishes  to  mute  lips  press 

Buried  ere  death  in  silent  helplessness. 

Then  while  the  soul  its  way  with  sound  can  cleave, 

And  while  the  arm  is  strong  to  strike  and  heave, 

Let  soul  and  arm  give  shape  that  will  abide 

And  rule  above  our  graves,  and  power  divide 

With  that  great  god  of  day,  whose  rays  must  bend 

As  we  shall  make  the  moving  shadows  tend. 

Come,  let  us  fashion  acts  that  are  to  be, 

When  we  shall  lie  in  darkness  silently, 

As  our  young  brother  doth,  whom  yet  we  see 

Fallen  and  slain,  but  reigning  in  our  will 

By  that  one  image  of  him  pale  and  still." 

For  Lamech's  sons  were  heroes  of  their  race: 

Jabal,  the  eldest,  bore  upon  his  face 

The  look  of  that  calm  river-god,  the  Nile, 

"Mildly  secure  in  power  that  needs  not  guile. 

But  Tubal-Cain  was  restless  as  the  fire 

That  glows  and  spreads  and  leaps  from  high  to  highei 

Where'er  is  aught  to  seize  or  to  subdue; 

Strong  as  a  storm  he  lifted  or  o'erthrew, 

His  urgent  limbs  like  rounded  granite  grew, 

Such  granite  as  the  plunging  torrent  wears 

And  roaring  rolls  around  through  countless  years. 

But  strength  that  still  on  movement  must  be  fed, 

Inspiring  thought  of  change,  devices  bred, 

And  urged  his  mind  through  earth  and  air  to  rove 

For  force  that  he  could  conquer  if  he  strove, 

For  lurking  forms  that  might  new  tasks  fulfill 

And  yield  unwilling  to  his  stronger  will. 

Such  Tubal-Cain.     But  Jubal  had  a  frame 

Fashioned  to  finer  senses,  which  became 

A  yearning  for  some  hidden  soul  of  things, 

Some  outward  touch  complete  on  inner  springs 

That  vaguely  moving  bred  a  lonely  pain, 

A  want  that  did  but  stronger  grow  with  gain 

Of  all  good  else,  as  spirits  might  be  sad 

For  lack  of  speech  to  tell  us  they  are  glad. 

Now  Jabal  learned  to  tame  the  lowing  kine, 

And  from  their  udders  drew  the  snow-white  wine 

That  stirs  the  innocent  joy,  and  makes  the  stream 

Of  elemental  life  with  fullness  teem; 

The  star-browed  calves  he  nursed  with  feeding  hand, 

And  sheltered  them,  till  all  the  little  band 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  181 

Stood  mustered  gazing  at  the  sunset  way 

Whence  he  would  come  with  store  at  close  of  day. 

He  soothed  the  silly  sheep  with  friendly  tone 

And  reared  their  staggering  lambs  that,  older  grown. 

Followed  his  steps  with  sense-taught  memory; 

Till  he,  their  shepherd,  could  their  leader  be 

And  guide  them  through  the  pastures  us  he  would, 

With  s way  that  grew  from  ministry  of  good. 

He  spread  his  tents  upon  the  grassy  plain 

Which,  eastward  widening  like  the  open  main, 

Showed  the  first  whiteness  'neath  the  morning  star; 

Near  him  his  sister,  deft,  as  women  are, 

Plied  her  quick  skill  in  sequence  to  his  thought 

Till  the  hid  treasures  of  the  milk  she  caught 

Revealed  like  pollen  'mid  the  petals  white. 

The  golden  pollen,  virgin  to  the  light. 

Even  the  she-wolf  with  young,  on  rapine  bent, 

He  caught  and  tethered  in  his  mat-walled  tent, 

And  cherished  all  her  little  sharp-nosed  young 

Till  the  small  race  with  hope  and  terror  clung 

About  his  footsteps,  till  each  new-reared  brood, 

Remoter  from  the  memories  of  the  wood, 

More  glad  discerned  their  common  home  with  man. 

This  was  the  work  of  Jabal:  he  began 

The  pastoral  life,  and,  sire  of  joys  to  be, 

Spread  the  sweet  ties  that  bind  the  family 

O'er  dear  dumb  souls  that  thrilled  at  man's  caress, 

And  shared  his  pains  with  patient  helpfulness. 

But  Tubal-Cain  had  caught  and  yoked  the  fire, 
Yoked  it  with  stones  that  bent  the  flaming  spire 
And  made  it  roar  in  prisoned  servitude 
Within  the  furnace,  till  with  force  subdued 
It  changed  all  forms  he  willed  to  work  upon, 
Till  hard  from  soft,  and  soft  from  hard,  he  won. 
The  pliant  clay  he  moulded  as  he  would, 
And  laughed  with  joy  when  'mid  the  heat  it  stood 
Shaped  as  his  hand  had  chosen,  while  the  mass 
That  from  his  hold,  dark,  obstinate,  would  pass, 
He  drew  all  glowing  from  the  busy  heat, 
All  breathing  as  with  life  that  he  could  beat 
With  thundering  hammer,  making  it  obey 
His  will  creative,  like  the  pale  soft  clay. 
Each  day  he  wrought  and  better  than  he  planned, 
Shape  breeding  shape  beneath  his  restless  hand. 


162  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

(The  soul  without  still  helps  the  soul  within, 
And  its  delf  magic  ends  where  we  begin.) 
Nay,  in  his  dreams  his  hammer  he  would  wield 
And  seem  to  see  a  myriad  types  revealed, 
Then  spring  with  wondering  triumphant  cry, 
And,  lest  the  inspiring  vision  should  go  by, 
Would  rush  to  labor  with  that  plastic  zeal 
Which  all  the  passion  of  our  life  can  steal 
For  force  to  work  with.     Each  day  saw  the  birth 
Of  various  forms  which,  flung  upon  the  earth, 
Seemed  harmless  toys  to  cheat  the  exacting  hour, 
But  were  as  seeds  instinct  with  hidden  power. 
The  ax,  the  club,  the  spiked  wheel,  the  chain, 
Held  silently  the  shrieks  and  moans  of  pain: 
And  near  them  latent  lay  in'  shear  and  spade, 
In  the  strong  bar,  the  saw,  and  deep-curved  blade, 
Glad  voices  of  the  hearth  and  harvest-home, 
The  social  good,  and  all  earth's  joy  to  come. 
Thus  to  mixed  ends  wrought  Tubal;  and  they  say, 
Some  things  he  made  have  lasted  to  this  day; 
As,  thirty  silver  pieces  that  were  found 
By  Noah's  children  buried  in  the  ground. 
He  made  them  from  mere  hunger  of  device, 
Those  small  white  discs;  but  they  became  the  price 
The  traitor  Judas  sold  his  Master  for; 
And  men  still  handling  them  in  peace  and  war 
Catch  foul  disease,  that  come  as  appetite, 
And  lurks  and  clings  as  withering,  damning  blight. 
But  Tubal-Cain  wot  not  of  treachery, 
Nor  greedy  lust,  nor  any  ill  to  be, 
Save  the  one  ill  of  sinking  into  nought, 
Banished  from  action  and  act-shaping  thought. 
He  was  the  sire  of  swift-transforming  skill, 
Which  arms  for  conquest  man's  ambitious  will; 
And  round  him  gladly,  as  his  hammer  rung, 
Gathered  the  elders  and  the  growing  young: 
These  handled  vaguely  and  those  plied  the  tools, 
Till,  happy  chance  begetting  conscious  rules, 
The  home  of  Cain  with  industry  was  rife, 
And  glimpes  of  a  strong  persistent  life, 
Panting  through  generations  as  one  breath, 
And  filling  with  its  soul  the  blank  of  death. 

Jubal,  too,  watched  the  hammer,  till  his  eyes, 
No  longer  following  its  fall  or  rise, 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  163 

Seemed  glad  with  something  that  they  could  not  see, 

But  only  listened  to  —  some  melody, 

Wherein  dumb  longings  inward  speech  had  found, 

Won  from  the  common  store  of  struggling  sound. 

Then,  as  the  metal  shapes  more  various  grew, 

And,  hurled  upon  each  other,  resonance  drew, 

Each  gave  new  tones,  the  revelations  dim 

Of  some  external  soul  that  spoke  for  him: 

The  hollow  vessel's  clang,  the  clash,  the  boom, 

Like  light  that  makes  wide  spiritual  room 

And  skyey  spaces  in  the  spaceless  thought, 

To  Jubal  such  enlarged  passion  brought 

That  love,  hope,  rage,  and  all  experience, 

Were  fused  in  vaster  being,  fetching  thence 

Concords  and  discords,  cadences  and  cries 

That  seemed  from  some  world-shrouded  soul  to  rise, 

Some  rapture  more  intense,  some  mightier  rage, 

Some  living  sea  that  burst  the  bounds  of  man's  brief  age. 

Then  with  such  blissful  trouble  and  glad  care 

For  growth  within  unborn  as  mothers  bear, 

To  the  far  woods  he  wandered,  listening, 

And  heard  the  birds  their  little  stories  sing 

In  notes  whose  rise  and  fall  seemed  melted  speech  — 

Melted  with  tears,  smiles,  glances  —  that  can  reach 

More  quickly  through  our  frame's  deep-winding  night, 

And  without  thought  raise  thought's  best  fruit,  delight. 

Pondering,  he  sought  his  home  again  and  heard 

The  fluctuant  changes  of  the  spoken  word: 

The  deep  remonstrance  and  the  argued  want, 

Insistent  first  in  close  monotonous  chant, 

Next  leaping  upward  to  defiant  stand 

Or  downward  beating  like  the  resolute  hand; 

The  mother's  call,  the  children's  answering  cry, 

The  laugh's  light  cataract  tumbling  from  on  high; 

The  suasive  repetitions  Jabal  taught, 

That  timid  browsing  cattle  homeward  brought; 

The  clear-winged  fugue  of  echoes  vanishing; 

And  through  them  all  the  hammer's  rhythmic  ring. 

Jubal  sat  lonely,  all  around  was  dim, 

Y"et  his  face  glowed  with  light  revealed  to  him: 

For  as  the  delicate  stream  of  odor  wakes 

The  thought-wed  sentience  and  some  image  makes 

From  out  the  mingled  fragments  of  the  past, 

Finelv  compact  in  wholeness  that  will  last, 


164  THE   LEGEKD   OF  JUBAL. 

So  streamed  as  from  the  body  of  each  sound 
Subtler  pulsations,  swift  as  warmth,  which  found 
All  prisoned  germs  and  all  their  powers  unbound, 
Till  thought  self-luminous  flamed  from  memory, 
And  in  creative  vision  wandered  free. 
Then  Jubal,  standing,  rapturous  arms  upraised, 
And  on  the  dark  with  eager  eyes  he  gazed, 
As  had  some  manifested  god  been  there. 
It  was  his  thought  he  saw:  the  presence  fair 
Of  unachieved  achievement,  the  high  task, 
The  struggling  unborn  spirit  that  doth  ask 
With  irresistible  cry  for  blood  and  breath, 
Till  feeding  its  great  life  we  sink  in  death. 

He  said,  "  Were  now  those  mighty  tones  and  cries 

That  from  the  giant  soul  of  earth  arise, 

Those  groans  of  some  great  travail  heard  from  far, 

Some  power  at  wrestle  with  the  things  that  are, 

Those  sounds  which  vary  with  the  varying  form 

Of  clay  and  metal,  and  in  sightless  swarm 

Fill  the  wide  space  with  tremors:  were  these  wed 

To  human  voices  with  such  passion  fed 

As  does  but  glimmer  in  our  common  speech, 

But  might  flame  out  in  tones  whose  changing  reach, 

Surpassing  meagre  need,  informs  the  sense 

With  fuller  union,  finer  difference  — 

Were  this  great  vision,  now  obscurely  bright 

As  morning  hills  that  melt  in  new-poured  light, 

Wrought  into  solid  form  and  living  sound, 

Moving  with  ordered  throb  and  sure  rebound, 

Then Nay,  I  Jubal  will  that  work  begin! 

The  generations  of  our  race  shall  win 

New  life,  that  grows  from  out  the  heart  of  this, 

As  spring  from  winter,  or  as  lovers'  bliss 

From  out  the  dull  unknown  of  un waked  energies." 

Thus  he  resolved,  and  in  the  soul-fed  light 
Of  coming  ages  waited  through  the  night, 
Watching  for  that  near  dawn  whose  chiller  ray 
Showed  but  the  unchanged  world  of  yesterday; 
Where  all  the  order  of  his  dream  divine 
Lay  like  Olympian  forms  within  the  mine; 
Where  fervor  that  could  fill  (lie  earthly  round 
With  thronged  joys  of  form-begotten  sound 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  165 

Must  shrink  intense  within  the  patient  power 
That  lonely  labors  through  the  niggard  hour. 
Such  patience  have  the  heroes  who  begin, 
Sailing  the  first  to  lands  which  others  win. 
Jubal  must  dare  as  great  beginners  dare. 
Strike  form's  first  way  in  matter  rude  and  bare, 
And,  yearning  vaguely  toward  the  plenteous  choir 
Of  the  world's  harvest,  make  one  poor  small  lyre. 
He  made  it,  and  from  out  its  measured  frame 
Drew  the  harmonic  soul,  whose  answers  came 
With  guidance  sweet  and  lessons  of  delight 
Teaching  to  ear  and  hand  the  blissful  Right, 
Where  strictest  law  is  gladness  to  the  sense 
And  all  desire  bends  toward  obedience. 

Then  Jubal  poured  his  triumph  in  a  song  — 

The  rapturous  word  that  rapturous  notes  prolong 

As  radiance  streams  from  smallest  things  that  burn, 

Or  thought  of  loving  into  love  doth  turn. 

And  still  his  lyre  gave  companionship 

In  sense-taught  concert  as  of  lip  with  lip. 

Alone  arnid  the  hills  at  first  he  tried 

His  winged  song;  then  with  adoring  pride 

And  bridegroom's  joy  at  leading  forth  his  bride, 

He  said,  "  This  wonder  which  my  soul  hath  found, 

This  heart  of  music  in  the  might  of  sound, 

Shall  forthwith  be  the  share  of  all  our  race 

And  like  the  morning  gladden  common  space: 

The  song  shall  spread  and  swell  as  rivers  do, 

And  I  will  teach  our  youth  with  skill  to  woo 

This  living  lyre,  to  know  its  secret  will, 

Its  fine  division  of  the  good  and  ill. 

So  shall  men  call  me  sire  of  harmony, 

And  where  great  Song  is,  there  my  life  shall  be. 

Thus  glorying  as  a  god  beneficent, 

Forth  from  his  solitary  joy  he  went 

To  bless  mankind.     It  was  at  evening, 

When  shadows  lengthen  from  each  westward  thing, 

When  imminence  of  change  makes  sense  more  fine 

And  light  seems  holier  in  its  grand  decline. 

The  fruit-trees  wore  their  studded  coronal, 

Earth  and  her  children  were  at  festival, 

Glowing  as  with  one  heart  and  one  consent — 

Thought,  love,  trees,  rocks,  in  sweet ,  warm  radiance  blent, 


166  THE    LEGEND    OF   JUBAL. 

The  tribe  of  Cain  was  resting  on  the  ground, 

The  various  ages  wreathed  in  one  broad  round. 

Here  lay,  while  children  peeped  o'er  his  huge  thighs, 

The  sinewy  man  embrowned  by  centuries; 

Here  the  broad-bosomed  mother  of  the  strong 

Looked,  like  Demeter,  placid  o'er  the  throng 

Of  young,  lithe  forms  whose  rest  was  movement  too— 

Tricks,  prattle,  nods;  and  laughs  that  lightly  flew, 

And  swayiugs  as  of  flower-beds  where  Love  blew. 

For  all  had  feasted  well  upon  the  flesh 

Of  juicy  fruits,  on  nuts,  and  honey  fresh, 

And  now  their  wine  was  health-bred  merriment, 

Which  through  the  generations  circling  went, 

Leaving  none  sad,  for  even  father  Cain 

Smiled  as  a  Titan  might,  despising  pain. 

Jabal  sat  climbed  on  by  a  playful  ring 

Of  children,  lambs  and'  whelps,  whose  gamboling, 

With  tiny  hoofs,  paws,  hands,  and  dimpled  feet. 

Made  barks,  bleats,  laughs,  in  pretty  hubbub  meet. 

But  Tubal's  hammer  rang  from  far  away, 

Tubal  alone  would  keep  no  holiday, 

His  furnace  must  not  slack  for  any  feast, 

For  of  all  hardship  work  he  counted  least; 

He  scorned  all  rest  but  sleep,  where  every  dream 

Made  his  repose  more  potent  action  seem. 

Yet  with  health's  nectar  some  strange  thirst  was  blent, 
The  fateful  growth,  the  unnamed  discontent, 
The  inward  shaping  toward  some  unborn  power, 
Some  deeper-breathing  act,  the  being's  flower. 
After  all  gestures,  words,  and  speech  of  eyes, 
The  soul  had  more  to  tell,  and  broke  in  sighs. 

Then  from  the  east,  with  glory  on  his  head 
Such  as  low-slanting  beams  on  corn-waves  spread, 
Came  Jubal  with  his  lyre:  there 'mid  the  throng, 
Where  the  blank  space  was,  poured  a  solemn  song, 
Touching  his  lyre  to  full  harmonic  throb 
And  measured  pulse,  with  cadences  that  sob, 
Exult  and  cry,  and  search  the  inmost  deep 
Where  the  dark  sources  of  new  passion  sleep. 
Joy  took  the  air,  and  took  each  breathing  soul, 
Embracing  them  in  one  entranced  whole, 
Yet  thrilled  each  varying  frame  to  various  ends, 
As  Spring  new-waking  through  the  creature  sends 


THE    LEGEND   OF   JUBAL.  167 

Or  rage  or  tenderness;  more  plenteous  life 

Here  weeding  dread,  and  there  a  fiercer  strife. 

He  who  had  lived  through  twice  three  centuries, 

Whose  months  monotonous,  like  trees  on  trees 

In  hoary  forests,  stretched  a  backward  maze, 

Dreamed  himself  dimly  through  the  traveled  days 

Till  in  clear  light  he  paused,  and  felt  the  sun 

That  warmed  him  when  he  was  a  little  one; 

Felt  that  true  heaven,  the  recovered  past, 

The  dear  small  Known  amid  the  Unknown  vast, 

And  in  that  heaven  wept.     But  younger  limhs 

Thrilled   toward   the  future,   that  bright   land   which 

swims 

In  western  glory,  isles  and  streams  and  bays, 
Where  hidden  pleasures  float  in  golden  haze. 
And  in  all  these  the  rhythmic  influence, 
Sweetly  overcharging  the  delighted  sense, 
Flowed  out  in  movements,  little  waves  that  spread 
Enlarging,  till  in  tidal  union  led 
The  youths  and  maidens  both  alike  long-tressed, 
By  grace-inspiring  melody  possessed, 
Eose  in  slow  dance,  with  beauteous  floating  swerve 
Of  limbs  and  hair,  and  many  a  melting  curve 
Of  ringed  feet  swayed  by  each  close-linked  palm: 
Then  Jubal  poured  more  rapture  in  his  psalm, 
The  dance  fired  music,  music  fired  the  dance, 
The  glow  diffusive  lit  each  countenance, 
Till  all  the  gazing  elders  rose  and  stood 
With  glad  yet  awful  shock  of  that  mysterious  good. 

Even  Tubal  caught  the  sound,  and  wondering  came, 
Urging  his  sooty  bulk  like  smoke-wrapt  flame 
Till  he  could  see  his  brother  with  the  lyre, 
The  work  for  which  he  lent  his  furnace-fire 
And  diligent  hammer,  witting  nought  of  this — 
This  power  in  metal  shape  which  made  strange  bliss, 
Entering  within  him  like  a  dream  full-fraught 
With  new  creations  finished  in  a  thought. 

The  sun  had  sunk,  but  music  still  was  there, 

And  when  this  ceased,  still  triumph  filled  the  air: 

It  seemed  the  stars  were  shining  with  delight 

And  that  no  night  was  ever  like  this  night. 

All  clung  with  praise  to  Jubal:  some  besought 

That  he  would  teach  them  his  new  skill;  some  caught, 


168  THE   LEGEND    OF   JUBAL. 

Swiftly  as  smiles  are  caught  in  looks  that  meet, 
The  tone's  melodic  change  and  rhythmic  beat: 
'Twas  easy  following  where  invention  trod — 
All  eyes  can  see  when  light  flows  out  from  God. 


And  thus  did  Jubal  to  his  race  reveal 
Music  their  larger  soul,  where  woe  and  weal 
Filling  the  resonant  chords,  the  song,  the  dance, 
Moved  with  a  wider-winged  utterance. 
Now  many  a  lyre  was  fashioned,  many  a  song 
Eaised  echoes  new,  old  echoes  to  prolong, 
Till  things  of  Jubal's  making  were  so  rife, 
Hearing  myself,"  he  said,  "hems  in  my  life, 
And  I  will  get  me  to  some  far-off  land, 
Where  higher  mountains  Tinder  heaven  stand 
And  touch  the  blue  at  rising  of  the  stars, 
Whose  song  they  hear  where  no  rough  mingling  mars 
The  great  clear  voices.     Such  lands  there  must  be, 
Where  varying  forms  make  varying  symphony — 
Where  other  thunders  roll  amid  the  hills, 
Some  mightier  wind  a  mightier  forest  fills 
With  other  strains  through  other-shapen  boughs; 
Where  bees  and  birds  and  beasts  that  hunt  or  browse 
Will  teach  me  songs  I  know  not.     Listening  there, 
My  life  shall  grow  like  trees  both  tall  and  fair 
That  rise  and  spread  and  bloom  toward  fuller  fruit  each 
year/' 

He  took  a  raft,  and  traveled  with  the  stream 
Southward  for  many  a  league,  till  he  might  deem 
He  saw  at  last  the  pillars  of  the  sky, 
Beholding  mountains  whose  white  majesty 
Hushed  through  him  as  new  awe,  and  made  new  song 
That  swept  with  fuller  wave  the  chords  along, 
Weighting  his  voice  with  deep  religious  chime, 
The  iteration  of  slow  chant  sublime. 
It  was  the  region  long  inhabited 
By  all  the  race  of  Seth;  and  Jubal  said: 
Here  have  I  found  my  thirsty  soul's  desire, 
Eastward  the  hills  touch  heaven,  and  evening's  fire 
Flames  through  deep  waters;  I  will  take  my  rest, 
And  feed  anew  from  my  great  mother's  breast, 
The  sky-clasped  Earth,  whose  voices  nurture  me 
As  the  flowers'  sweetness  doth  the  honey-bee," 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  169 

He  lingered  wandering  for  many  an  age, 
And,  sowing  music,  made  high  heritage 
For  generations  far  beyond  the  Flood — 
For  the  poor  late-begotten  human  brood 
Born  to  life's  weary  brevity  and  perilous  good. 

And  ever  as  he  traveled  he  would  climb 

The  farthest  mountain,  yet  the  heavenly  chime, 

The  mighty  tolling  of  the  far-off  spheres 

Beating  their  pathway,  never  touched  his  ears. 

But  wheresoever  he  rose  the  heavens  rose, 

And  the  far-gazing  mountain  could  disclose 

Nought  but  a  wider  earth;  until  one  height 

Showed  him  the  ocean  stretched  in  liquid  light, 

And  he  could  hear  its  multitudinous  roar, 

Its  plunge  and  hiss  upon  the  pebbled  shore: 

Then  Jubal  silent  sat,  and  touched  his  lyre  no  more. 

He  thought,  "  The  world  is  great,  but  I  am  weak, 
And  where  the  sky  bends  is  no  solid  peak 
To  give  me  footing,  but  instead,  this  main — 
Myriads  of  maddened  horses  thundering  o'er  the  plain. 

"  New  voices  come  to  me  where'er  I  roam, 
My  heart  too  widens  with  its  widening  home: 
But  song  grows  weaker,  and  the  heart  must  break 
For  lack  of  voice,  or  fingers  that  can  wake 
The  lyre's  full  answer;  nav,  its  chords  were  all 
Too  few  to  meet  the  growing  spirit's  call. 
The  former  songs  seem  little,  yet  no  more 
Can  soul,  hand,  voice,  with  interchanging  lore 
Tell  what  the  earth  is  saying  unto  me: 
The  secret  is  too  great,  I  hear  confusedly. 

"  No  farther  will  I  travel:  once  again 
My  brethren  I  will  see,  and  that  fair  plain 
Where  I  and  Song  were  born.     There  fresh-voiced  youth 
Will  pour  my  strains  with  all  the  early  truth 
Which  now  abides  not  in  my  voice  and  hands, 
Bnt  only  in  the  soul,  the  will  that  stands 
Helpless  to  move.     My  tribe  remembering 
Will  cry  'Tis  he!'  and  run  to  greet  me,  welcoming." 

The  way  was  weary.     Many  a  date-palm  grew, 
\ml  shook  out  clustered  gold  against  the  blue, 


170  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  • 

While  Jubal,  guided  by  the  steadfast  spheres, 

Sought  the  dear  home  of  those  first  eager  years, 

When,  with  fresh  vision  fed,  the  fuller  will 

Took  living  outward  shape  in  pliant  skill; 

For  still  he  hoped  to  find  the  former  things, 

And  the  warm  gladness  recognition  brings. 

His  footsteps  erred  among  the  mazy  woods 

And  long  illusive  sameness  of  the  floods, 

Winding  and  wandering.     Through  far  regions,  strange 

With  Gentile  homes  and  faces,  did  he  range, 

And  left  his  music  in  their  memory, 

And  left  at  last,  when  nought  besides  would  free 

His  homeward  steps  from  clinging  hands  and  cries, 

The  ancient  lyre.     And  now  in  ignorant  eyes 

No  sign  remained  of  Jubal,  Lamech's  son, 

That  mortal  frame  wherein  was  first  begun 

The  immortal  life  of  song.     His  withered  brow 

Pressed  over  eyes  that  held  no  lightning  now, 

His  locks  streamed  whiteness  on  the  hurrying  air, 

The  unresting  soul  had  worn  itself  quite  bare 

Of  beauetous  token,  as  the  outworn  might 

Of  oaks  slow  dying,  gaunt  in  summer's  light. 

His  full  deep  voice  toward  thinnest  treble  ran: 

He  was  the  rune-writ  story  of  a  man. 

And  so  at  last  he  neared  the  ivell-known  land, 
Could  see  the  hills  in  ancient  order  stand 
With  friendly  faces  whose  familiar  gaze 
Looked  through  the  sunshine  of  his  childish  days; 
Knew  the  deep-shadowed  folds  of  hanging  woods, 
And  seemed  to  see  the  self-same  insect  broods 
Whirling  and  quivering  o'er  the  flowers — to  hear 
The  self-same  cuckoo  making  distance  near. 
Yea,  the  dear  Earth,  with  mother's  constancy, 
Met  and  embraced  him,  and  said,  "Thou  art  he! 
This  was  thy  cradle,  here  my  breast  was  thine, 
Where  feeding,  thou  didst  all  thy  life  entwine 
With  my  sky- wedded  life  in  heritage  divine." 

But  wending  ever  through  the  watered  plain, 

Firm  not  to  rest  save  in  the  home  of  Cain, 

He  saw  dread  Change,  with  dubious  face  and  cold 

That  never  kept  a  welcome  for  the  old, 

Like  some  strange  heir  upon  the  hearth,  arise 

Saying  "  This  home  is  mine/'     He  thought  his  eyes 


THE    LEGEND    OF   JUBAL.  171 

Mocked  all  deep  memories,  as  things  new  made, 

Usurping  sense,  make  old  things  shrink  and  fade 

And  seem  ashamed  to  meet  the  staring  day. 

His  memory  saw  a  small  foot-trodden  way, 

His  eyes  a  broad  far-stretching  paven  road 

Bordered  with  many  a  tomb  and  fair  abode; 

The  little  city  that  once  nestled  low 

As  buzzing  groups  about  some  central  glow, 

Spread  like  a  murmuring  crowd  o'er  plain  and  steep, 

Or  monster  huge  in  heavy-breathing  sleep. 

His  heart  grew  faint,  and  tremblingly  he  sank 

Close  by  the  wayside  on  a  weed-grown  bank, 

Not  far  from  where  a  new-raised  temple  stood, 

Sky-roofed,  and  fragrant  with  wrought  cedar  wood. 

The  morning  sun  was  high;  his  rays  fell  hot 

On  this  hap-chosen,  dusty,  common  spot, 

On  the  dry-withered  grass  and  withered  man: 

That  wondrous  frame  where  melody  began 

Lay  as  a  tomb  defaced  that  no  eye  cared  to  scan. 

But  while  he  sank  far  music  reached  his  ear. 
He  listened  until  wonder  silenced  fear 
And  gladness  wonder;  for  the  broadening  stream 
Of  sound  advancing  was  his  early  dream, 
Brought  like  fulfillment  of  forgotten  prayer; 
As  if  his  soul,  breathed  out  upon  the  air^ 
Had  held  the  invisible  seeds  of  harmony 
Quick  with  the  various  strains  of  life  to  be. 
He  listened:  the  sweet  mingled  difference 
With  charm  alternate  took  the  meeting  sense; 
Then  bursting  like  some  shield-broad  lily  red, 
Sudden  and  near  the  trumpet's  notes  out-spread, 
And  soon  his  eyes  could  see  the  metal  flower, 
Shining  upturned,  out  on  the  morning  pour 
Its  incense  audible;  could  see  a  train 
From  out  the  street  slow-winding  on  the  plain 
With  lyres  and  cymbals,  flutes  and  psalteries, 
While  men,  youths,  maids,  in  concert  sang  to  these 
With  various  throat,  or  in  succession  poured, 
Or  in  full  volume  mingled.     But  one  word 
Ruled  each  recurrent  rise  and  answering  fall, 
As  when  the  multitudes  adoring  call 
On  some  great  name  divine,  their  common  soul, 
The  common  need,  love,  joy,  that  knits  them  in  one 
whole. 


172  THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL. 

The  word  was  "  Jubal!" "Jubal"  filled  the  air 

And  seemed  to  ride  aloft,  a  spirit  there, 

Creator  of  the  choir,  the  full-fraught  strain 

That  grateful  rolled  itself  to  him  again. 

The  aged  man  adust  upon  the  bank — 

Whom  no  eye  saw — at  first  with  rapture  drank 

The  bliss  of  music,  then,  with  swelling  heart, 

Felt,  this  was  his  own  being's  greater  part, 

The  universal  joy  once  born  in  him. 

But  when  the  train,  with  living  face  and  limb 

And  vocal  breath,  came  nearer  and  more  near, 

The  longing  grew  that  they  should  hold  him  dear; 

Him,  Lamech's  son,  whom  all  their  fathers  knew, 

The  breathing  Jubal — him,  to  whom  their  love  was  due. 

All  was  forgotten  but  the  burning  need 

To  claim  his  fuller  self,  to  claim  the  deed 

That  lived  away  from  him,  and  grew  apart, 

While  he  as  from  a  tomb,  with  lonely  heart, 

Warmed  by  no  meeting  glance,  no  hand  that  pressed, 

Lay  chill  amid  the  life  his  life  had  blessed. 

What  though  his  song  should  spread  from  man's  small 

race 

Out  through  the  myriad  worlds  that  people  space, 
And  make  the  heavens  one  joy-diffusing  choir? — 
Still  ?mid  that  vast  would  throb  the  keen  desire 
Of  this  poor  aged  flesh,  this  eventide, 
This  twilight  soon  in  darkness  to  subside, 
This  little  pulse  of  self  that,  having  glowed 
Through  thrice  three  centuries,  and  divinely  strowed 
The  light  of  music  through  the  vague  of  sound, 
Ached  with  its  smallness  still  in  good  that  had  no  Sound. 

For  no  eye  saw  him,  while  with  loving  pride 
Each  voice  with  each  in  praise  of  Jubal  vied. 
Must  he  in  conscious  trance,  dumb,  helpless  lie 
While  all  that  ardent  kindred  passed  him  by? 
His  flesh  cried  out  to  live  with  living  men 
And  join  that  soul  which  to  the  inward  ken 
Of  all  the  hymning  train  was  present  there. 
Strong  passion's  daring  sees  not  aught  to  dare: 
The  frost-locked  starkness  of  his  frame  low  bent, 
His  voice's  penury  of  tones  long  spent, 
He  felt  not;  all  his  being  leaped  in  flame 
To  meet  his  kindred  as  they  onward  came 


THE   LEGEND   OF  JUBAL.  173 

Slackening  and  wheeling  toward  the  temple's  face: 
He  rushed  before  them  to  the  glittering  space, 
And,  with  a  strength  that  was  but  strong  desire, 

Cried,  "  I  am  Jubal,  I! 1  made  the  lyre!'' 

The  tones  amid  a  lake  of  silence  fell 

Broken  and  strained,  as  if  a  feeble  bell 

Had  tuneless  pealed  the  triumph  of  a  land 

To  listening  crowds  in  expectation  spanned. 

Sudden  came  showers  of  laughter  on  that  lake; 

They  spread  along  the  train  from  front  to  wake 

In  one  great  storm  of  merriment,  while  he 

Shrank  doubting  whether  he  could  Jubal  be, 

And  not  a  dream  of  Jubal,  whose  rich  vein 

Of  passionate  music  came  with  that  dream-pain 

Wherein  the  sense  slips  off  from  each  loved  thing 

And  all  appearance  is  mere  vanishing. 

But  ere  the  laughter  died  from  out  the  rear, 

Anger  in  front  saw  profanation  near; 

Jubal  was  but  a  name  in  each  man's  faith 

For  glorious  power  untouched  by  that  slow  death 

Which  creeps  with  creeping  time;  this  too,  the  spot, 

And  this  the  day,  it  must  be  crime  to  blot, 

Even  with  scoffing  at  a  madman's  lie: 

Jubal  was  not  a  name  to  wed  with  mockery. 

Two  rushed  upon  him:  two,  the  most  devout 

In  honor  of  great  Jubal,  thrust  him  out, 

And  beat  him  with  their  flutes.     'Twas  little  need; 

He  strove  not,  cried  not,  but  with  tottering  speed, 

As  if  the  scorn  and  howls  were  driving  wind 

That  urged  his  body,  serving  so  the  mind 

Which  could  but  shrink  and  yearn,  he  sought  the  screen 

Of  thorny  thickets,  and  there  fell  unseen. 

The  immortal  name  of  Jubal  filled  the  sky, 

While  Jubal  lonely  laid  him  down  to  die. 

He  said  within  his  soul,  "This  is  the  end: 

O'er  all  the  earth  to  where  the  heavens  bend 

And  hem  men's  travel,  I  have  breathed  my  soul: 

I  lie  here  now  the  remnant  of  that  whole, 

The  embers  of  a  life,  a  lonely  pain; 

As  far-off  rivers  to  my  thirst  were  vain, 

So  of  my  mighty  years  nought  comes  to  me  again. 

Is  the  day  sinking?    Softest  coolness  springs 
From  something  round  me:  dewy  shadowy  wrngs 


174  THE    LEGEND   OF  JUBAL. 

Enclose  me  all  around — no,  not  above — 
Is  moonlight  there?    I  sec  a  face  of  love, 
Fair  as  sweet  music  when  my  heart  was  strong: 
Yea — art  thou  come  again  to  me,  great  song?" 

The  face  bent  over  him  like  silver  night 

In  long-remembered  summers;  that  calm  light 

Of  days  which  shine  in  firmaments  of  thought, 

That  past  unchangeable,  from  change  still  wrought. 

And  gentlest  tones  were  with  the  vision  blent: 

He  knew  not  if  that  gaze  the  music  sent, 

Or  music  that  calm  gaze:  to  hear,  to  see, 

Was  but  one  undivided  ecstacy: 

The  raptured  senses  melted  into  one, 

And  parting  life  a  moment's  freedom  won 

From  in  and  outer,  as  a  little  child 

Sits  on  a  bank  and  sees  blue  heavens  mild 

Down  in  the  water,  and  forgets  its  limbs, 

And  knoweth  nought  save  the  blue  heaven  that  swims. 

"  Jubal,"  the  face  said,  "  I  am  thy  loved  Past, 
The  soul  that  makes  thee  one  from  first  to  last. 
I  am  the  angel  of  thy  life  and  death, 
Thy  outbreathed  being  drawing  its  last  breath. 
Am  I  not  thine  alone,  a  dear  dead  bride 
Who  blest  thy  lot  above  all  men's  beside? 
Thy  bride  whom  thou  wouldst  never  change,  nor  take 
Any  bride  living,  for  that  dead  one's  sake? 
Was  I  not  all  thy  yearning  and  delight, 
Thy  chosen  search,  thy  senses'  beauteous  Eight, 
Which  still  had  been  the  hunger  of  thy  frame 
In  central  heaven,  hadst  thou  been  still  the  same? 
Wouldst  thou  have  asked  aught  else  from  any  god — 
Whether  with  gleaming  feet  on  earth  he  trod 
Or  thundered  through  the  skies — aught  else  for  share 
Of  mortal  good,  than  in  thy  soul  to  bear 
The  growth  of  song,  and  feel  the  sweet  unrest 
Of  the  world's  spring-tide  in  thy  conscious  breast? 
No,  thou  hadst  grasped  thy  lot  with  all  its  pain, 
Nor  loosed  it  any  painless  lot  to  gain 
Where  music's  voice  was  silent;  for  thy  fate 
Was  human  music's  self  incorporate: 
Thy  senses'  keenness  and  thy  passionate  strife 
Were  flesh  of  her  flesh  and  her  womb  of  life. 


THE  LEGEND  OF  JUBAL.  175 

And  greatly  hast  thou  lived,  for  not  alone 
With  hidden  raptures  were  her  secrets  shown. 
Buried  within  thoe,  as  the  purple  light 
Of  gems  may  sleep  in  solitary  night; 
But  thy  expanding  joy  was  still  to  give, 
And  with  the  generous  air  in  song  to  live, 
Feeding  the  wave  of  ever-widening  bliss 
Where  fellowship  means  equal  perfectness. 
And  on  the  mountains  in  thy  wandering 
Thy  feet  were  beautiful  as  blossomed  spring, 
That  turns  the  leafless  wood  to  love's  glad  home, 
For  with  thy  coming  Melody  was  come. 
This  was  thy  lot,  to  feel,  create,  bestow, 
And  that  immeasurable  life  to  know 
From  which  the  fleshly  self  falls  shriveled,  dead, 
A  seed  primeval  that  has  forests  bred. 
It  is  the  glory  of  the  heritage 
Thy  life  has  left,  that  makes  thy  outcast  age: 
Thy  limbs  shall  lie  dark,  tornbless  on  this  sod, 
Because  thou  shinest  in  man's  soul,  a  god, 
Who  found  and  gave  new  passion  and  new  joy 
That  nought  but  Earth's  destruction  can  destroy. 
Thy  gifts  to  give  was  thine  of  men  alone: 
'Twas  but  in  giving  that  thou  couldst  atone 
For  too  much  wealth  amid  their  poverty.'* — 

The  words  seemed  melting  into  symphony, 
The  wings  upbore  him,  and  the  gazing  song 
Was  floating  him  the  heavenly  space  along, 
Where  mighty  harmonies  all  gently  fell 
Through  veiling  vastness,  like  the  far-off  bell, 
Till,  ever  onward  through  the  choral  blue, 
He  heard  more  faintly  and  more  faintly  knew, 
Quitting  mortality,  a  quenched  sun-wave, 
The  All-creating  Presence  for  his  grave. 


AGATHA. 


COME  with  me  to  the  mountain,  not  where  rocks 
Soar  harsh  above  the  troops  of  hurrying  pines, 
But  where  the  earth  spreads  soft  and  rounded  breasts 
To  feed  her  children;  where  the  generous  hills 
Lift  a  green  isle  betwixt  the  sky  and  plain 
To  keep  some  Old  World  things  aloof  from  change. 
Here  too  'tis  hill  and  hollow:  new-born  streams 
With  sweet  enforcement,  joyously  compelled 
Like  laughing  children,  hurry  down  the  steeps, 
And  make  a  dimpled  chase  athwart  the  stones; 
Pine  woods  are  black  upon  the  heights,  the  slopes 
Are  green  with  pasture,  and  the  bearded  corn 
Fringes  the  blue  above  the  sudden  ridge: 
A  little  world  whose  round  horizon  cuts 
This  isle  of  hills  with  heaven  for  a  sea, 
Save  in  clear  moments  when  southwestward  gleams 
France  by  the  Rhine,  melting  anon  to  haze. 
The  monks  of  old  chose  here  their  still  retreat, 
And  called  it  by  the  Blessed  Virgin's  name, 
Sancta  Maria,  which  the  peasant's  tongue, 
Speaking  from  out  the  parent's  heart  that  turns 
All  loved  things  into  little  things,  has  made 
Sanct  'Miirgen — Holy  little  Mary,  dear 
As  all  the  sweet  home  things  she  smiles  upon, 
The  children  and  the  cows,  the  apple-trees, 
The  cart,  the  plough,  all  named  with  that  caress 
Which  feigns  them  little,  easy  to  be  held, 
Familiar  to  the  eyes  and  hand  and  heart. 
What  though  a  queen?     She  puts  her  crown  away 
And  with  her  little  Boy  wears  common  clothes, 
Caring  for  common  wants,  remembering 
That  day  when  good  Saint  Joseph  left  his  work 
To  marry  her  with  humble  trust  sublime. 
The  monks  are  gone,  their  shadows  fall  no  more 
Tall-frocked  and  cowled  athwart  the  evening  fields 
At  milking-time;  their  silent  corridors 
Are  turned  to  homes  of  bare-armed,  aproned  men 
Who  toil  for  wife  and  children.     But  the  belU 
176 


AGATHA.  177 

Pealing  on  high  from  two  quaint  convent  towers, 

Still  ring  the  Catholic  signals,  summoning 

To  grave  remembrance  of  the  larger  life 

That  bears  our  own,  like  perishable  fruit 

Upon  its  heaven-wide  branches.     At  their  sound 

The  shepherd  boy  far  off  upon  the  hill, 

The  workers  with  the  saw  and  at  the  forge, 

The  triple  generation  round  the  hearth, — 

Grandames  and  mothers  and  the  flute-voiced  girls, — 

Fall  on  their  knees  and  send  forth  prayerful  cries 

To  the  kind  Mother  with  the  little  Boy, 

Who  pleads  for  helpless  men  against  the  storm, 

Lightning  and  plagues  and  all  terrific  shapes 

Of  power  supreme. 

Within  the  prettiest  hollow  of  these  hills, 

Just  as  you  enter  it,  upon  the  slope 

Stands  a  low  cottage  neighbored  cheerily 

By  running  water,  which,  at  farthest  end 

Of  the  same  hollow,  turns  a  heavy  mill, 

And  feeds  the  pasture  for  the  miller's  cows, 

Blanchi  and  Nageli,  Veilchen  and  the  rest, 

Matrons  with  faces  as  Griselda  mild, 

Coming  at  call.     And  on  the  farthest  height 

A  little  tower  looks  out  above  the  pines 

Where  mounting  you  will  find  a  sanctuary 

Open  and  still;  without,  the  silent  crowd, 

Of  heaven,  planted,  incense-mingling  flowers; 

Within,  the  altar  where  the  Mother  sits 

'Mid  votive  tablets  hung  from  far-off  years 

By  peasants  succored  in  the  peril  of  fire, 

Fever,  or  flood,  who  thought  that  Mary's  love, 

Willing  but  not  omnipotent,  had  stood 

Between  their  lives  and  that  dread  power  which  slew 

Their  neighbor  at  their  side.     The  chapel  bell 

Will  melt  to  gentlest  music  ere  it  reach 

That  cottage  on  the  slope,  whose  garden  gate 

Has  caught  the  rose-tree  boughs  and  stands  ajar; 

So  does  the  door,  to  let  the  sunbeams  in; 

For  in  the  slanting  sunbeams  angels  come 

And  visit  Agatha  who  dwells  within, — 

Old  Agatha,  whose  cousins  Kate  and  Nell 

Are  housed  by  her  in  Love  and  Duty's  name, 

They  being  feeble,  with  small  withered  wits, 

And  she  believing  that  the  higher  gift 

Was  given  to  be  shared.     So  Agatha 


178  AGATHA. 

Shares  her  one  room,  all  neat  on  afternoons, 
As  if  some  memory  were  sacred  there 
And  everything  within  the  four  low  walls 
An  honored  relic. 

One  long  summer's  day 
An  angel  entered  at  the  rose-hung  gate, 
With  skirts  pale  blue,  a  brow  to  quench  the  pearl. 
Hair  soft  and  blonde  as  infants',  plenteous 
As  hers  who  made  the  wavy  lengths  once  speak 
The  grateful  worship  of  a  rescued  soul. 
The  angel  paused  before  the  open  door 
To  give  good-day.     *•  Come  in,"  said  Agatha. 
I  followed  close,  and  watched  and  listened  there. 
The  angel  was  a  lady,  noble,  young, 
Taught  in  all  seemliuess  that  fits  a  court, 
All  lore  that  shapes  the  mind  to  delicate  use, 
Yet  quiet,  lowly,  as  a  meek  white  dove 
That  with  its  presence  teaches  gentleness, 
Men  called  her  Countess  Linda;  little  girls 
In  Freiburg  town,  orphans  whom  she  caressed, 
Said  Mamma  Linda:  yet  her  years  were  few, 
Her  outward  beauties  all  in  budding  time, 
Her  virtues  the  aroma  of  the  plant 
That  dwells  in  all  its  being,  root,  stem,  leaf, 
And  waits  not  ripeness. 

"Sit,"  said  Agatha. 

Her  cousins  were  at  work  in  neighboring  homes 
But  yet  she  was  not  lonely;  all  things  round 
Seemed  filled  with  noiseless  yet  responsive  life, 
As  of  a  child  at  breast  that  gently  clings: 
Not  sunlight  only  or  the  breathing  flowers 
Or  the  swift  shadows  of  the  birds  and  bees, 
But  all  the  household  goods,  which,  polished  fair 
By  hands  that  cherished  them  for  service  done, 
Shone  as  with  glad  content.     The  wooden  beams 
Dark  and  yet  friendly,  easy  to  be  reached, 
Bore  three  white  crosses  for  a  speaking  sign- 
The  walls  had  little  pictures  hung  a-row, 
Telling  the  stories  of  Saint  Ursula, 
And  Saint  Elizabeth,  the  lowly  queen; 
And  on  the  bench  that  served  for  table  too, 
Skirting  the  wall  to  save  the  narrow  space, 
There  lay  the  Catholic  books,  inherited 
From  those  old  times  when  printing  still  was  youn$ 
With  stout-limbed  promise,  like  a  sturdy  boy. 


AGATHA.  179 

And  in  the  farthest  corner  stood  the  bed 
Where  o'er  the  pillow  hung  two  pictures  wreathed 
With  fresh-plucked  ivy:  one  the  Virgin's  death, 
And  one  her  flowering  tomb,  while  high  above 
She  smiling  bends  and  lets  her  girdle  down 
For  ladder  to  the  soul  that  cannot  trust 
In  life  which  outlasts  burial.     Agatha 
Sat  at  her  knitting,  aged,  upright,  slim, 
And  spoke  her  welcome  with  mild  dignity. 
She  kept  the  company  of  kings  and  queens 
And  mitred  saints  who  sat  below  the  feet 
Of  Francis  with  the  ragged  frock  and  wounds; 
And  Rank  for  her  meant  Duty,  various, 
Yet  equal  in  its  worth,  done  worthily. 
Command  was  service;  humblest  service  done 
By  willing  and  discerning  souls  was  glory. 
Fair  Countess  Linda  sat  upon  the  bench, 
Close  fronting  the  old  knitter,  and  they  talked 
With  sweet  antiphony  of  young  and  old. 

AGATHA. 

You  like  our  valley,  lady?    I  am  glad 

You  thought  it  well  to  come  again.     But  rest — 

The  walk  is  long  from  Master  Michael's  inn. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 
Yes,  but  no  walk  is  prettier. 

AGATHA. 

It  is  true: 

There  lacks  no  blessing  here,  the  waters  all 
Have  virtues  like  the  garments  of  the  Lord, 
And  heal  much  sickness;  then,  the  crops  and  cows 
Flourish  past  speaking,  and  the  garden  flowers, 
Pink,  blue,  and  purple,  'tis  a  joy  to  see 
How  they  yield  honey  for  the  singing  bees. 
I  would  the  whole  world  were  as  good  a  home. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

And  you  are  well  off,  Agatha  ? — your  friendg 
Left  you  a  certain  broad:  is  it  not  so  ? 


180  AGATHA. 

AGATHA. 

Not  so  at  all,  dear  lady.     I  had  nought, 

Was  a  poor  orphan;  but  I  came  to  tend 

Here  in  this  house,  an  old  afflicted  pair, 

Who  wore  out  slowly;  and  the  last  who  died, 

Full  thirty  years  ago,  left  me  this  roof 

And  all  the  household  stuff.     It  was  great  wealth; 

And  so  I  had  a  home  for  Kate  and  Nell. 


COUNTESS  LINDA. 

But  how,  then,  have  you  earned  your  daily  bread 
These  thirty  years  ? 

AGATHA. 

0,  that  is  easy  earning. 
We  help  the  neighbors,  and  our  bit  and  sup 
Is  never  failing:  they  have  work  for  us 
In  house  and  field,  all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends, 
Patching  and  mending,  turning  o'er  the  hay, 
Holding  sick  children, — there  is  always  work; 
And  they  are  very  good, — the  neighbors  are. 
Weigh  not  our  bits  of  work  with  weight  and  scale, 
But  glad  themselves  with  giving  us  good  shares 
Of  meat  and  drink;  and  in  the  big  farm-house 
When  cloth  comes  home  from  weaving,  the  good  wife 
Cuts  me  a  piece, — this  very  gown, — and  says: 
:  Here,  Agatha,  you  old  maid,  you  have  time 
To  pray  for  Hans  who  is  gone  soldiering: 
The  saints  might  help  him,  and  they  have  much  to  do, 
'Twere  Avell  they  were  besought  to  think  of  him.'* 
She  spoke  half  jesting,  but  I  pray,  I  pray 
For  poor  young  Hans.     I  take  it  much  to  heart 
That  other  people  are  worse  off  than  I, — 
I  ease  my  soul  with  praying  for  them  all. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

That  is  your  way  of  singing,  Agatha; 

Just  as  the  nightingales  pour  forth  sad  songs, 

And  when  they  reach  men's  ears  they  make  men's 

hearts 
Feel  the  more  kindlv. 


AGATHA.  181 

AGATHA. 

•  Nay,  I  cannot  sing: 

My  voice  is  hoarse,  and  oft  I  think  my  prayers 
Are  foolish,  feeble  things;  for  Christ  is  good 
Whether  I  pray  or  not, — the  Virgin's  heart 
Is  kinder  fur  thun  mine;  and  then  I  stop 
And  feel  I  can  do  nought  toward  helping  men, 
Till  out  it  comes,  like  tears  that  will  not  hold, 
And  I  must  pray  again  for  all  the  world. 
'Tis  good  to  me, — I  mean  the  neighbors  are: 
To  Kate  and  Nell  too.     I  have  money  saved 
To  go  on  pilgrimage  the' second  time. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

And  do  you  mean  to  go  on  pilgrimage 
With  all  your  years  to  carry,  Agatha  ? 

AGATHA. 

The  years  are  light,  dear  lady:  'tis  my  sins 
Are  heavier  than  I  would.     And  I  shall  go 
All  the  way  to  Einsiedeln  with  that  load : 
I  need  to  work  it  off. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

What  sort  of  sins, 
Dear  Agatha?    I  think  they  must  be  small. 

AGATHA. 

Nay,  but  they  may  be  greater  than  I  know; 

'Tis  but  dim  light  I  see  by.     So  I  try 

All  ways  I  know  of  to  be  cleansed  and  pure. 

I  would  not  sink  where  evil  spirits  are. 

There's  perfect  goodness  somewhere:  so  I  strive. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

You  were  the  better  for  that  pilgrimage 
You  made  before?    The  shrine  is  beautiful; 
And  then  you  saw  fresh  country  all  tha  way. 


182  AGATHA. 

AGATHA. 

Yes,  that  is  true.     And  ever  since  that  time 
The  world  seems  greater,  and  the  Holy  Church 
More  wonderful.     The  blessed  pictures  all, 
The  heavenly  images  with  books  and' wings. 
Are  company  to  me  through  the  day  and  night. 
The  time!  the  time!     It  never  seemed  far  back, 
Only  to  father's  father  and  his  kin 
That  lived  before  him.     But  the  time  stretched  out 
After  that  pilgrimage:  I  seemed  to  see 
Far  back,  and  yet  I  knew  time  lay  behind, 
As  there  are  countries  lying  still  behind 
The  highest  mountains,  there  in  Switzerland. 
0,  it  is  great  to  go  on  pilgrimage! 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

Perhaps  some  neighbors  will  be  pilgrims  too, 
And  you  can  start  together  in  a  band. 

AGATHA. 

Not  from  these  hills:  people  are  busy  here, 

The  beasts  want  tendance.     One  who  is  not  missed 

Can  go  and  pray  for  others  who  must  work. 

I  owe  it  to  all  neighbors,  young  and  old ; 

For  they  are  good  past  thinking, — lads  and  girls 

Given  to  mischief,  merry  naughtiness, 

Quiet  it,  as  the  hedgehogs  smooth  their  spines, 

For  fear  of  hurting  poor  old  Agatha. 

'Tis  pretty:  why,  the  cherubs  in  the  sky 

Look  young  and  merry,  and  the  angels  play 

On  citherns,  lutes,  and  all  sweet  instruments. 

I  would  have  young  things  merry.     See  the  Lord! 

A  little  baby  playing  with  the  birds; 

And  how  the  Blessed  Mother  smiles  at  him. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

I  think  you  are  too  happy,  Agatha, 

To  care  for  heaven.     Earth  contents  you  well. 

AGATHA. 

Nay,  nay,  I  shall  be  called,  and  I  shall  go 
Right  willingly.     I  shall  get  helpless,  blind, 


AGATHA.  183 

Be  like  an  old  stalk  to  be  plucked  away: 

The  garden  must  be  cleared  for  young  spring  planti. 

"Pis  home  beyond  the  grave,  the  most  are  there, 

All  those  we  pray  to,  all  the  Church's  lights, — 

And  poor  old  souls  are  welcome  in  their  rags: 

One  sees  it  by  the  pictures.     Good  Saint  Ann, 

The  Virgin's  mother,  she  is  very  old, 

And  had  her  troubles  with  her  husband  too. 

Poor  Kate  and  Nell  are  younger  far  than  I, 

But  they  will  have  this  roof  to  cover  them. 

I  shall  go  willingly;  and  willingness 

Makes  the  yoke  easy  and  the  burden  light. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

When  you  go  southward  in  your  pilgrimage, 

Come  to  see  me  in  Freiberg,  Agatha. 

Where  you  have  friends  you  should  not  go  to  inns. 

AGATHA. 

Yes,  I  will  gladly  come  to  see  you,  lady. 
And  you  will  give  me  sweet  hay  for  a  bed, 
And  in  the  morning  I  shall  wake  betimes 
And  start  when  all  the  birds  begin  to  sing. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

You  wear  your  smart  clothes  on  the  pilgrimage, 
Such  pretty  clothes  as  all  the  women  here 
Keep  by  them  for  their  best:  a  velvet  cap 
And  collar  golden-brpidered?    They  look  well 
On  old  and  young  alike. 

AGATHA. 

Nay,  I  have  none, — 

Never  had  better  clothes  than  these  you  see. 
Good  clothes  are  pretty,  but  one  sees  them  best 
When  others  wear  them,  and  I  somehow  thought 
'Twas  not  worth  while.     I  had  so  many  things 
More  than  some  neighbors,  I  was  partly  shy 
Of  wearing  better  clothes  than  they,  and  now 
I  am  so  old  and  custom  is  so  strong 
'Twould  hurt  me  sore  to  put  on  finery. 


184  AGATHA. 

COUNTESS  LINDA. 

Your  gray  hair  is  a  crown,,  dear  Agatha. 

Shake  hands;  good-bye.     The  sun  is  going  down, 

And  I  must  see  the  glory  from  the  hill. 

I  stayed  among  those  hills;  and  oft  heard  more 

Of  Agatha.     I  liked  to  hear  her  name, 

As  that  of  one  half  grandame  and  half  saint, 

Uttered  with  reverent  playfulness.     The  lads 

And  younger  men  all  called  her  mother,  aunt, 

Or  granny,  with  their  pet  diminutives, 

And  bade  their  lasses  and  their  brides  behave 

Right  well  to  one  who  surely  made  a  link 

'Twixt  faulty  folk  and  God  by  loving  both: 

Not  one  but  counted  service  done  by  her, 

Asking  no  pay  save  just  her  daily  bread. 

At  feasts  and  weddings,  when  they  passed  in  groups 

Along  the  vale,  and  the  good  country  wine, 

Being  vocal  in  them,  made  them  choir  along 

In  quaintly  mingled  mirth  and  piety, 

They  fain  must  jest  and  play  some  friendly  trick 

On  three  old  maids;  but  when  the  moment  came 

Always  they  bated  breath  and  made  their  sport 

Gentle  as  feather-stroke,  that  Agatha 

Might  like  the  waking  for  the  love  it  showed. 

Their  song  made  happy  music  'mid  the  hills, 

For  nature  tuned  their  race  to  harmony, 

And  poet  Hans,  the  tailor,  wrote  them  songs 

That  grew  from  out  their  life,  as  crocuses 

From  out  the  meadow's  moistness.     'Twas  his  song 

They  oft  sang,  wending  homeward  from  a  feast, — 

The  song  I  give  you.     It  brings  in,  you  see, 

Their  gentle  jesting  with  the  three  old  maids. 


Midnight  by  the  chapel  bell! 

Homeward,  homeward  all,  farewell! 

I  with  you,  and  you  with  me, 

Miles  are  short  with  company. 
Heart  of  Mary,  bless  the  way. 
Keep  us  all  by  night  and  day! 


Moon  and  stars  at  feast  with  night 
Now  have  drunk  their  fill  of  light. 


AGATHA.  186 

Home  they  hurry,  making  time 
Trot  apace,  like  merry  rhyme. 

Heart  of  Mary,  mystic  rose, 

Send  us  all  a  sweet  repose! 

Swiftly  through  the  wood  down  hill, 
Run  till  you  can  hear  the  mill. 
Toni's  ghost  is  wandering  now, 
Shaped  just  like  a  snow-white  cow. 

Heart  of  Mary,  morning  star, 

Ward  off  danger,  near  or  far! 

Toni's  wagon  with  its  load 
Fell  and  crushed  him  in  the  road 
'Twixt  these  pine-trees.     Never  fear! 
Give  a  neighbor's  ghost  good  cheer. 

Holy  Babe,  our  God  and  Brother, 

Bind  us  fast  to  one  another! 

Hark!  the  mill  is  at  its  work, 
Now  we  pass  beyond  the  murk 
To  the  hollow,  where  the  moon 
Makes  her  silvery  afternoon. 

Good  Saint  ^Joseph,  faithful  spouse, 

Help  us  all  to  keep  our  vows! 

Here  the  three  old  maidens  dwell, 
Agatha  and  Kate  and  Nell; 
See,  the  moon  shines  on  the  thatch, 
We  will  go  and  shake  the  latch. 

Heart  of  Mary,  cup  of  joy, 

Give  us  mirth  without  alloy! 

Hush,  'tis  here,  no  noise,  sing  low, 

Rap  with  gentle  knuckles — so! 

Like  the  little  tapping  birds, 

On  the  door;  then  sing  good  words. 
Meek  Saint  Anna,  old  and  fair, 
Hallow  all  the  snow-white  hair  I 

Little  maidens  old,  swret  dreams! 
Sleep  one  sleep  till  morning  beams. 
Mothers  ye,  who  help  us  all, 
Quick  at  hand,  if  ill  befall. 

Holy  Gabriel,  lily-laden, 

Bless  the  aged  mother-maiden/ 


186  AGATHA. 

Forward,  mount  the  broad  hillside 
Swift  as  soldiers  when  they  ride. 
See  the  two  towers  how  they  peep, 
Round-capped  giants,  o'er  the  steep. 
Heart  of  Mary,  by  thy  sorrow, 
Keep  us  upright  through  the  morrow! 

Now  they  rise  quite  suddenly 
Like  a  man  from  bended  knee, 
Now  Saint  Margen  is  in  sight, 
Here  the  roads  branch  off — good-night! 
Heart  of  Mary,  by  thy  grace, 
Give  us  with  the  saints  a  place! 


ARMGART. 


SCENE  I. 

A  Salon  lit  with  lamps  and  ornamented  with  green  plants. 
An  open  piano,  with  many  scattered  sheets  of  music. 
Bronze  busts  of  Beethoven  and  Gluck  on  pillars  opposite 
each  other.  A  small  table  spread  with  supper.  To 
FRAULEIN  WALPURGA,  who  advances  with  a  slight  lame- 
ness of  gait  from  an  adjoining  room,  enters  GRAF 
DORXBURG  at  the  opposite  door  in  a  traveling  dress. 

GRAF. 
Good  morning,  Fraulein! 

WALPURGA. 

What,  so  soon  returned? 
I  feared  your  mission  kept  you  still  at  Prague. 

GRAF. 

But  now  arrived!    You  see  my  traveling  dress. 
I  hurried  from  the  panting,  roaring  steam 
Like  any  courier  of  embassy 
Who  hides  the  fiends  of  war  within  his  bag. 

WALPURGA. 
You  know  that  Armgart  sings  to-night? 

GRAF. 

Has  sung! 

JTis  close  on  half-past  nine.     The  Orpheus 
Lasts  not  so  long.     Her  spirits — were  they  high? 
Was  Leo  confident? 

WALPURGA. 

He  only  feared 

Some  tamenees  at  beginning.     Let  the  house 
Once  ring,  he  said,  with  plaudits,  she  is  safe. 

1ST 


188  ARMGART. 

GRAF. 

And  Armgart? 

WALPUBGA. 

She  was  stiller  than  her  wont. 
But  once,  at  some  such  trivial  word  of  mine, 
As  that  the  highest  prize  might  yet  be  won 
By  her  who  took  the  second — she  was  roused. 
"For  me,"  she  said,  "I  triumph  or  I  fail. 
I  never  strove  for  any  second  prize." 

GRAF. 

Poor  human-hearted  singing-bird!    She  bears 

Caesar's  ambition  in  her  delicate  breast, 

And  nought  to  still  it  with  but  quivering  song; 

WALPURGA. 

I  had  not  for  the  world  been  there  to-night; 
Unreasonable  dread  oft  chills  me  more 
Than  any  reasonable  hope  can  warm. 

GRAF. 

You  have  a  rare  affection  for  your  cousin; 
As  tender  as  a  sister's. 

WALPURGA. 

Nay,  I  fear 

My  love  is  little  more  than  what  I  felt 
For  happy  stories  when  I  was  a  child. 
She  fills  my  life  that  would  be  empty  else, 
And  lifts  my  nought  to  value  by  her  side. 

GRAF. 

She  is  reason  good  enough,  or  seems  to  be, 
Why  all  were  born  whose  being  ministers 
To  her  completeness.     Is  it  most  her  voice 
Subdues  us?  or  her  instinct  exquisite, 
Informing  each  old  strain  with  some  new  grace 
Which  takes  our  sense  like  any  natural  good? 
Or  most  her  spiritual  energy 
That  sweeps  us  in  the  current  of  ner  song? 


ABMGABT.  189 

WALPUBGA. 

I  know  not.     Losing  either,  we  should  lose 
That  whole  we  call  our  Armgart.     For  herself, 
She  often  wonders  what  her  life  had  been 
Without  that  voice  for  channel  to  her  soul. 
She  says,  it  must  have  leaped  through  all  her  limbs — 
Made  her  a  Msenad — made  her  snatch  a  brand 
And  fire  some  forest,  that  her  rage  might  mount 
In  crashing  roaring  flames  through  half  a  land, 
Leaving  her  still  and  patient  for  a  while. 
"Poor  wretch!"  she  says,  of  any  murderess — 
"  The  world  was  cruel,  and  she  could  not  sing: 
I  carry  my  revenges  in  my  throat; 
I  love  in  singing,  and  am  loved  again." 

GBAP. 

Mere  mood!     I  cannot  yet  believe  it  more. 
Too  much  ambition  has  unwomaned  her; 
But  only  for  a  while.     Her  nature  hides 
One  half  its  treasures  by  its  very  wealth, 
Taxing  the  hours  to  show  it. 

WALPUBGA. 

Hark !  she  comes. 

Enter  LEO  with  a  wreath  in  his  hand,  holding  the  door 
open  for  ABMGABT,  who  wears  a  furred  mantle  and  hood. 
She  is  followed  by  her  maid,  carrying  an  armful  of 
bouquets. 

LEO. 
Place  for  the  queen  of  song! 

GBAF  (advancing  toward  ABMGABT,  who  throws  off  her 
hood  and  mantle,  and  shows  a  star  of  brilliants  in  her 
hair. ) 

A  triumph,  then. 

You  will  not  be  a  niggard  of  your  joy 
And  chide  the  eagerness  that  came  to  share  it. 

ABMGABT. 

0  kind !  you  hastened  your  return  for  me. 

1  would  you  had  been  there  to  hear  me  sing! 


190  ABMGABT. 

Walpurga,  kiss  me;  never  tremble  more 

Lest  Armgart's  wings  should  fail  her.    She  has  found 

This  night  the  region  where  her  rapture  bre'athes — 

Pouring  her  passion  on  the  air  made  live 

With  human  heart-throbs.     Tell  them,  Leo,  tell  them 

How  I  outsang  your  hope  and  made  you  cry 

Because  Gluck  could  not  hear  me.     That  was  folly'1. 

He  sang,  not  listened;  every  linked  note 

Was  his  immortal  pulse  that  stirred  in  mine, 

And  all  my  gladness  is  but  part  of  him. 

Give  me  the  wreath. 

[She  crowns  the  bust  of  GLUCK. 

LEO  (sardonically). 

Ay,  ay,  but  mark  you  this: 
It  was  not  part  of  him — that  trill  you  made 
In  spite  of  me  and  reason! 

AEMGAET. 

You  were  wrong — 

Dear  Leo,  you  were  wrong;  the  house  was  held 
As  if  a  storm  were  listening  with  delight  . 
And  hushed  its  thunder. 

LEO. 

Will  you  ask  the  house 

To  teach  you  singing?    Quit  your  Orpheus,  then, 
And  sing  in  farces  grown  to  operas, 
Where  all  the  prurience  of  the  full-fed  mob 
Is  tickled  with  melodic  impudence; 
Jerk  forth  burlesque  bravuras,  square  your  arms 
Akimbo  with  a  tavern  wench's  grace, 
And  set  the  splendid  compass  of  your  voice 
To  lyric  jigs.     Go  to!  I  thought  you  meant 
To  be  an  artist — lift  your  audience 
To  see  your  vision,  not  trick  forth  a  show 
To  please  the  grossest  taste  of  grossest  numbers. 

AEMGART  (taking  up  LEO'S  hand  and  kissing  it). 

Pardon,  good  Leo,  I  am  penitent. 
I  will  do  penance;  sing  a  hundred  trills 
Into  a  deep-dug  grave,  then  burying  them 
As  one  did  Midas'  secret,  rid  myself 


AKMGART.  191 

Of  naughty  exultation.     0  I  trilled 

At  nature's  prompting,  like  the  nightingales. 

Go  scold  them,  dearest  Leo. 

LEO. 

I  stop  my  ears. 

Nature  in  Gluck  inspiring  Orpheus, 
Has  done  with  nightingales.     Are  bird-beaks  lips? 

GRAF. 

Truce  to  rebukes!    Tell  us — who  were  not  there — 
The  double  drama;  how  the  expectant  house 
Took  the  first  notes. 

WALPURQA  (turning  from  her  occupation  of  decking  the 
room  with  the  flowers). 

Yes,  tell  us  all,  dear  Armgart. 
Did  you  feel  tremors?    Leo,  how  did  she  look? 
Was  there  a  cheer  to  greet  her? 

LEO. 

Not  a  sound. 

She  walked  like  Orpheus  in  his  solitude, 
And  seemed  to  see  nought  but  what  no  man  saw. 
'Twas  famous.     Not  the  Schroeder-Devrient 
Had  done  it  better.     But  your  blessed  public 
Had  never  any  judgment  in  cold  blood — 
Thinks  all  perhaps  were  better  otherwise. 
Till  rapture  brings  a  reason. 

ARMGART  (scornfully). 

I  knew  that! 

The  women  whispered,  "Not  a  pretty  face!" 
The  men,  "Well,  well,  a  goodly  length  of  limb: 
She  bears  the  chiton."  —  It  were  all  the  same 
Were  I  the  Virgin  Mother  and  my  stage 
The  opening  heavens  at  the  Judgment-day: 
Gossips  would  peep,  jog  elbows,  rate  the  price 
Of  such  a  woman  in  the  social  mart. 
What  were  the  drama  of  the  world  to  them, 
Unless  they  felt  the  hoil-prong? 


192  ARMGART. 


Peace,  now,  peace! 

I  hate  my  phrases  to  be  smothered  o'er 
With  sauce  of  paraphrase,  my  sober  tune 
Made  bass  to  rambling  trebles,  showering  down 
In  endless  demi-semi-quavers. 

ARMGART  (talcing  a  bon-bon  from  the  table,  uplifting  it 
before  putting  it  into  her  mouth,  and  turning  away). 

Mum! 


GRAF. 
Yes,  tell  us  all  the  glory,  leave  the  blame. 

WALPTJRGA. 

You  first,  dear  Leo  —  what  you  saw  and  heard; 
Then  Armgart  —  she  must  tell  us  what  she  felt. 

LEO 

Well!    The  first  notes  came  clearly  firmly  forth. 

And  I  was  easy,  for  behind  those  rills 

I  knew  there  was  a  fountain.     I  could  see 

The  house  was  breathing  gently,  heads  were  still; 

Parrot  opinion  was  struck  meekly  mute, 

And  human  hearts  were  swelling.     Armgart  stood 

As  if  she  had  been  new-created  there 

And  found  her  voice  which  found  a  melody. 

The  minx!    Gluck  had  not  written,  nor  I  taught: 

Orpheus  was  Armgart,  Armgart  Orpheus. 

Well,  well,  all  through  the  scena  I  could  feel 

The  silence  tremble  now,  now  poise  itself 

With  added  weight  of  feeling,  till  at  last 

Delight  o'er-toppled  it.     The  final  note 

Had  happy  drowning  in  the  unloosed  roar 

That  surged  and  ebbed  and  ever  surged  again, 

Till  expectation  kept  it  pent  awhile 

Ere  Orpheus  returned.     Pfui!    He  was  changed: 

My  demi-god  was  pale,  had  downcast  eyes 

That  quivered  like  a  bride's  who  fain  would  send 

Backward  the  rising  tear. 


\ 

AKMGART.  l!»o 

ARMGART  (advancing,  but  then  turning  away,  as  if  to 
check  her  speech). 

I  was  a  bride, 
As  nuns  are  at  their  spousals. 

LEO. 

Ay,  my  lady, 

That  moment  will  not  come  again:  applause 
May  come  and  plenty;  but  the  first,  first  draught! 

(Snaps  Ms  fingers.) 

Music  has  sounds  for  it  —  I  know  no  words. 
I  felt  it  once  myself  when  they  performed 
My  overture  to  Sintram.     Well!  'tis  strange, 
We  know  not  pain  from  pleasure  in  such  joy. 

ARMGART  (turning  quickly). 

Oh,  pleasure  has  cramped  dwelling  in  our  souls, 
And  when  full  Being  comes  must  call  on  pain 
To  lend  it  liberal  space. 

WALPURGA. 

I  hope  the  house 

Kept  a  reserve  of  plaudits:  I  am  jealous 
Lest  they  had  dulled  themselves  for  coming  good 
That  should  have  seemed  the  better  and  the  best. 

LEO. 

No,  'twas  a  revel  where  they  had  but  quaffed 
Their  opening  cup.     I  thank  the  artist's  star, 
His  audience  keeps  not  sober:  once  afire, 
They  flame  toward  climax,  though  his  merit  hold 
But  fairly  even. 

ARMGART  (her  hand  on  LEO'S  arm). 

Now,  now,  confess  the  truth: 
I  sang  still  better  to  the  very  end  — 
All  save  the  trill;  I  give  that  up  to  you, 
To  bite  and  growl  at.     Why,  you  said  yourself, 
Each  time  I  sang,  it  seemed  new  doors  were  oped 
That  you  might  hear  heaven  clearer. 


18 


LEO  (shaking  Ms  finger). 

I  was  raving. 


194  ARMGART. 

ARMGART. 

I  am  not  glad  with  that  mean  vanity 
Which  knows  no  good  beyond  its  appetite 
Full  feasting  upon  praise!    I  am  only  glad, 
Being  praised  for  what  I  know  is  worth  the  praise; 
Glad  of  the  proof  that  I  myself  have  part 
In  what  I  worship!    At  the  last  applause  — 
Seeming  a  roar  of  tropic  winds  that  tossed 
The  handkerchiefs  and  many-colored  flowers, 
Falling  like  shattered  rainbows  all  around  — 
Think  you  I  felt  myself  a  prima  donna  ? 
No,  but  a  happy  spiritual  star 
Such  as  old  Dante  saw,  wrought  in  a  rose 
Of  light  in  Paradise,  whose  only  self 
Was  consciousness  of  glory  wide-diffused, 
Music,  life,  power  —  I  moving  in  the  midst 
With  a  sublime  necessity  of  good. 

LEO  {with  a  shrug). 

I  thought  it  was  a,  prima  donna  came 
Within  the  side-scenes;  ay,  and  she  was  proud 
To  find  the  bouquet  from  the  royal  box 
Enclosed  a  jewel-case,  and  proud  to  wear 
A  star  of  brilliants,  quite  an  earthly  star, 
Valued  by  thalers.     Come,  my  lady,  own 
Ambition  has  five  senses,  and  a  self 
That  gives  it  good  warm  lodging  when  it  sinks 
Plump  down  from  ecstasy. 

ARMGART. 

Own  it?  why  not? 

Am  I  a  sage  whose  words  must  fall  like  seed 
Silently  buried  toward  a  far-off  spring? 
I  sing  to  living  men  and  my  effect 
Is  like  the  summer's  sun,  that  ripens  corn 
Or  now  or  never.     If  the  world  brings  me  gifts, 
Gold,  incense,  myrrh  —  'twill  be  the  needful  sign 
That  I  have  stirred  it  as  the  high  year  stirs 
Before  I  sink  to  winter. 

GRAF. 

Ecstasies 

Are  short  —  most  happily!    We  should  but  lose 
Were  Armgart  borne  too  commonly  and  long 


ABMGART.  195 

Out  of  the  self  that  charms  us.     Could  I  choose, 
She  were  less  apt  to  soar  beyond  the  reach 
Of  woman's  foibles,  innocent  vanities, 
Fondness  for  trifles  like  that  pretty  star 
Twinkling  beside  her  cloud  of  ebon  hair. 

ARMGART  (taking  out  the  gem  and  looking  at  it). 

This  little  star!    I  would  it  were  the  seed 

Of  a  whole  Milky  Way,  if  such  bright  shimmer 

Were  the  sole  speech  men  told  their  rapture  with 

At  Armgart's  music.     Shall  I  turn  aside 

From  splendors  which  flash  out  the  glow  I  make, 

And  live  to  make,  in  all  the  chosen  breasts 

Of  half  a  Continent?    No,  may  it  come, 

That  splendor!    May  the  day  be  near  when  men 

Think  much  to  let  my  horses  draw  me  home, 

And  new  lands  welcome  me  upon  their  beach, 

Loving  me  for  my  fame.     That  is  the  truth 

Of  what  I  wish,  nay,  yearn  for.     Shall  I  lie? 

Pretend  to  seek  obscurity — to  sing 

In  hope  of  disregard?    A  vile  pretense! 

And  blasphemy  besides.     For  what  is  fame 

But  the  benignant  strength  of  One,  transformed 

To  joy  of  Many?    Tributes,  plaudits  come 

As  necessary  breathing  of  such  joy; 

And  may  they  come  to  me! 

GRAF. 

The  auguries 

Point  clearly  that  way.     Is  it  no  offense 
To  wish  the  eagle's  wing  may  find  repose, 
As  feebler  wings  do  in  a  quiet  nest? 
Or  has  the  taste  of  fame  already  turned 
The  Woman  to  a  Muse 

LEO  (going  to  the  table). 

Who  needs  no  supper? 
I  am  her  priest,  ready  to  eat  her  share 
Of  good  Walpurga's  offerings. 


Graf,  will  you  come? 


WALPURGA. 

Armgart,  come. 


196  ARMGART. 

GRAF. 

Thanks,  I  play  truant  here, 
And  must  retrieve  my  self-indulged  delay. 
But  will  the  Muse  receive  a  votary 
At  any  hour  to-morrow? 

ARMGART. 

Any  hour 
After  rehearsal,  after  twelve  at  noon. 


SCENE  II. 

The  same  salon,  morning.  ARMGART  seated,  in  her  bon- 
net and  walking  dress.  The  GRAF  standing  near  her 
against  the  piano. 

GRAF. 

Armgart,  to  many  minds  the  firs't  success 
Is  reason  for  desisting.     I  have  known 
A  man  so  versatile,  he  tried  all  arts. 
But  when  in  each  by  turns  he  had  achieved 
Just  so  much  mastery  as  made  men  say, 
"  He  could  be  king  here  if  he  would,"  he  threw 
The  lauded  skill  aside.     He  hates,  said  one, 
The  level  of  achieved  pre-eminence, 
He  must  be  conquering  still;  but  others  said 

ARMGART. 

The  truth,  I  hope:  he  had  a  meagre  soul, 
Holding  no  depth  where  love  could  root  itself. 
"  Could  if  he  would?"     True  greatness  ever  wills — 
It  lives  in  wholeness  if  it  live  at  all, 
And  all  its  strength  is  knit  with  constancy. 

GRAF. 

He  used  to  say  himself  he  was  too  sane 
To  give  his  life  away  for  excellence 
Which  yet  must  stand,  an  ivory  statuette 


ARMGART.  197 

Wrought  to  perfection  through  long  lonely  years, 

Huddled  in  the  mart  of  mediocrities. 

He  said,  the  very  finest  doing  wins 

The  admiring  only;  but  to  leave  undone, 

Promise  and  not  fulfill,  like  buried  youth, 

Wins  all  the  envious,  makes  them  sigh  your  name 

As  that  fair  Absent,  blameless  Possible, 

Which  could  alone  impassion  them;  and  thus, 

Serene  negation  has  free  gift  of  all, 

Panting  achievement  struggles,  is  denied, 

Or  wins  to  lose  again.     What  say  you,  Armgart? 

Truth  has  rough  flavors  if  we  bite  it  through; 

I  think  this  sarcasm  came  from  out  its  core 

Of  bitter  irony. 

ARMGART. 

It  is  the  truth 

Mean  souls  select  to  feed  upon.     What  then? 
Their  meanness  is  a  truth,  which  I  will  spurn. 
The  praise  I  seek  lives  not  in  envious  breath 
Using  my  name  to  blight  another's  deed. 
I  sing  for  love  of  song  and  that  renown 
Which  is  the  spreading  act,  the  world-wide  share, 
Of  good  that  I  was  born  with.     Had  I  failed — 
Well,  that  had  been  a  truth  most  pitiable. 
I  cannot  bear  to  think  what  life  would  be 
With  high  hope  shrunk  to  endurance,  stunted  aims 
Like  broken  lances  ground  to  eating-knives, 
A  self  sunk  down  to  look  with  level  eyes 
At  low  achievement,  doomed  from  day  to  day 
To  distaste  of  its  consciousness.     But  I 

GRAF. 

Have  won,  not  lost,  in  your  decisive  throw. 

And  I  too  glory  in  this  issue;  yet, 

The  public  verdict  has  no  potency 

To  sway  my  judgment  of  what  Armgart  is: 

My  pure  delight  in  her  would  be  but  sullied, 

If  it  o'erfiowed  with  mixture  of  men's  praise. 

And  had  she  failed,  I  should  have  said,  "  The  pearl 

Remains  a  pearl  for  me,  reflects  the  light 

With  the  same  fitness  that  first  charmed  my  gaze— 

Is  worth  as  fine  a  setting  now  as  then," 


198  ARMGART. 

AEMGART  (rising). 

Oh,  you  are  good!    But  why  will  you  rehearse 
The  talk  of  cynics,  who  with  insect  eyes 
Explore  the  secrets  of  the  rubbish-heap? 
I  hate  your  epigrams  and  pointed  saws 
Whose  narrow  truth  is  but  broad  falsity. 
Confess  your  friend  was  shallow. 

GRAF. 

I  confess 

Life  is  not  rounded  in  an  epigram, 
And  saying  aught,  we  leave  a  world  unsaid. 
I  quoted,  merely  to  shape  forth  my  thought 
That  high  success  has  terrors  when  achieved — 
Like  preternatural  spouses  whose  dire  love 
Hangs  perilous  on  slight  observances: 
Whence  it  were  possible  that  Armgart  crowned 
Might  turn  and  listen  to  a  pleading  voice, 
Though  Armgart  striving  in  the  race  was  deaf. 
You  said  you  dared  not  think  what  life  had  been 
Without  the  stamp  of  eminence;  have  you  thought 
How  you  will  bear  the  poise  of  eminence 
With  dread  of  sliding?    Paint  the  future  out 
As  an  unchecked  and  glorious  career, 
'Twill  grow  more  strenuous  by  the  very  love 
You  bear  to  excellence,  the  very  fate 
Of  human  powers,  which  tread  at  every  step 
On  possible  verges. 

ARMGART. 

I  accept  the  peril. 

I  choose  to  walk  high  with  sublimer  dread 
Eather  than  crawl  in  safety.     And,  besides, 
I  am  an  artist  as  you  are  noble: 
I  ought  to  bear  the  burden  of  my  rank. 

GRAF. 

Such  parallels,  dear  Armgart,  are  but  snares 
To  catch  the  mind  with  seeming  argument — 
Small  baits  of  likeness  'mid  disparity. 
Men  rise  the  higher  as  their  task  is  high, 
The  task  being  well  achieved.     A  woman's  rank 
Lies  in  the  fullness  of  her  womanhood: 
Therein  alone  she  is  royal. 


AEMGABT.  199 

ABMGART. 

Yes,  I  know 

The  oft-taught  Gospel:  "Woman,  thy  desire 
Shall  be  that  all  superlatives  on  earth 
Belong  to  men,  save  the  one  highest  kind — 
To  be  a  mother.     Thou  shalt  not  desire 
To  do  aught  best  save  pure  subservience: 
Nature  has  willed  it  so!"    0  blessed  Nature! 
Let  her  be  arbitress;  she  gave  me  voice 
Such  as  she  only  gives  a  woman  child, 
Best  of  its  kind,  gave  me  ambition  too, 
That  sense  transcendent  which  can  taste  the  joy 
Of  swaying  multitudes,  of  being  adored 
For  such  achievement,  needed  excellence, 
As  man's  best  art  must  wait  for,  or  be  dumb. 
Men  did  not  say,  when  I  had  sung  last  night, 

"  'Twas  good,  nay,  wonderful,  considering 
She  is  a  woman" — and  then  turn  to  add, 

"  Tenor  or  baritone  had  sung  her  songs 
Better,  of  course:  she's  but  a  woman  spoiled." 
I  beg  your  pardon,  Graf,  you  said  it. 

GRAF. 

No! 

How  should  I  say  it,  Armgart?    I  who  own 
The  magic  of  your  nature-given  art 
As  sweetest  effluence  of  your  womanhood 
Which,  being  to  my  choice  the  best,  must  find 
The  best  of  utterance.     But  this  I  say: 
Your  fervid  youth  beguiles  you;  you  mistake 
A  strain  of  lyric  passion  for  a  life 
Which  in  the  spending  is  a  chronicle 
With  ugly  pages.     Trust  me,  Armgart,  trust  me; 
Ambition  exquisite  as  yours  which  soars 
Toward  something  quintessential  you  call  fame, 
Is  not  robust  enough  for  this  gross  world 
Whose  fame  is  dense  with  false  and  foolish  breath. 
Ardor,  a-twin  with  nice  refining  thought, 
Prepares  a  double  pain.     Pain  had  been  saved, 
Nay,  purer  glory  reached,  had  you  been  throned 
As  woman  only,  holding  all  your  art 
As  attribute  to  that  dear  sovereignty — 
Concentering  your  power  in  home  delights 
Which  penetrate  and  purify  the  world. 


200  ARMGABT. 

ARMGART. 

What!  leave  the  opera  with  my  part  ill-sung 
While  I  was  warbling  in  a  drawing-room? 
Sing  in  the  chimney-corner  to  inspire 
My  husband  reading  news?     Let  the  world  hear 
My  music  only  in  his  morning  speech 
Less  stammering  than  most  honorable  men's? 
No!  tell  me  that  my  song  is  poor,  my  art 
The  piteous  feat  of  weakness  aping  strength — 
That  were  fit  proem  to  your  argument. 
Till  then,  I  am  an  artist  by  my  birth — 
By  the  same  warrant  that  I  am  a  woman: 
Nay,  in  the  added  rarer  gift  I  see 
Supreme  vocation:  if  a  conflict  comes, 
Perish — no,  not  the  -woman,  but  the  joys 
Which  men  make  narrow  by  their  narrowness 
Oh,  I  am  happy!     The  great  masters  write 
For  women's  voices,  and  great  Music  wants  me! 
I  need  not  crush  myself  within  a  mold 
Of  theory  called  Nature:  I  have  room 
To  breathe  and  grow  unstunted. 


GRAF. 

Armgart,  hear  me. 

I  meant  not  that  our  talk  should  hurry  on 
To  such  collision.     Foresight  of  the  ills 
Thick  shadowing  your  path,  drew  on  my  speech 
Beyond  intention.  .  True,  I  came  to  ask 
A  great  renunciation,  but  not  this 
Toward  which  my  words  at  first  perversely  strayed,, 
As  if  in  memory  of  their  earlier  suit, 

Forgetful 

Armgart,  do  you  remember  too?  the  suit 
Had  but  postponement,  was  not  quite  disdained — 
Was  told  to  wait  and  learn — what  it  has  learned — 
A  more  submissive  speech. 

ARMGART  (with  some  agitation). 

Then  it  forgot 

Its  lesson  cruelly.     As  I  remember, 
'Twas  not  to  speak  save  to  the  artist  crowned, 
Nor  speak  to  her  of  casting  off  her  crown, 


AEMGAKT.  201 

GBAF. 

Nor  will  it,  Armgart.     I  come  not  to  seek 

Any  renunciation  save  the  wife's, 

Which  turns  away  from  other  possible  love 

Future  and  worthier,  to  take  his  love 

Who  asks  the  name  of  husband.     He  who  sought 

Armgart  obscure,  and  heard  her  answer,  "Wait" — 

May  come  without  suspicion  now  to  seek 

Armgart  applauded. 

AKMGABT  (turning  toward  him). 

Yes,  without  suspicion 

Of  aught  save  what  consists  with  faithfulness 
In  all  expressed  intent.     Forgive  me,  Graf — 
I  am  ungrateful  to  no  soul  that  loves  me — 
To  you  most  grateful.     Yet  the  best  intent 
Grasps  but  a  living  present  which  may  grow 
Like  any  unfledged  bird.     You  are  a  noble, 
And  have  a  high  career;  just  now  you  said 
'Twas  higher  far  than  aught  a  woman  seeks 
Beyond  mere  womanhood.     You  claim  to  be 
More  than  a  husband,  but  could  not  rejoice 
That  I  were  more  than  wife.     What  follows,  then? 
You  choosing  me  with  such  persistency 
As  is  but  stretched-out  rashness,  soon  must  find 
Our  marriage  asks  concessions,  asks  resolve 
To  share  renunciation  or  demand  it. 
Either  we  both  renounce  a  mutual  ease, 
As  in  a  nation's  need  both  man  and  wife 
Do  public  services,  or  one  of  us 
Must  yield  that  something  else  for  which  each  lives 
Besides  the  other.     Men  are  reasoners: 
That  premise  of  superior  claims  perforce 
Urges  conclusion — "  Armgart,  it  is  you." 

GBAF. 

But  if  I  say  I  have  considered  this 
With  strict  prevision,  counted  all  the  cost 
Which  that  great  good  of  loving  you  demands — 
Questioned  my  stores  of  patience,  half  resolved 
To  live  resigned  without  a  bliss  whose  threat 
Touched  you  as  well  as  me — and  finally, 
With  impetus  of  undivided  will 


202  AEMGAET. 

Keturned  to  say,  "You  shall  be  free  as  now; 
Only  accept  the  refuge,  shelter,  guard, 
My  love  will  give  your  freedom  " — then  your  words 
Are  hard  accusal. 

AEMGAET. 

Well,  I  accuse  myself. 
My  love  would  be  accomplice  of  your  will. 

GEAF. 
Again — my  will? 

AEMGAET. 

Oh,  your  unspoken  will. 
Your  silent  tolerance  would  torture  me, 
And  on  that  rack  I  should  deny  the  good 
I  yet  believed  in. 

GEAF. 

Then  I  am  the  man 
Whom  you  would  love? 

AEMGAET. 

Whom  I  refuse  to  love! 
No;  I  will  live  alone  and  pour  my  pain 
With  passion  into  music,  where  it  turns 
To  what  is  best  within  my  better  self. 
I  will  not  take  for  husband  one  who  deems 
The  thing  my  soul  acknowledges  as  good — 
The  thing  I  hold  worth  striving,  suffering  for, 
To  be  a  thing  dispensed  with  easily, 
Or  else  the  idol  of  a  mind  infirm. 

GEAF. 

Armgart,  you  are  ungenerous;  you  strain 
My  thought  beyond  its  mark.     Our  difference 
Lies  not  so  deep  as  love — us  union 
Through  a  mysterious  fitness  that  transcends 
Formal  agreement. 

AEMGAET. 

It  lies  deep  enough 
To  chafe  the  union.     If  many  a  man 


ABMGAET.  203 

Refrains,  degraded,  from  the  utmost  right, 
Because  the  pleadings  of  his  wife's  small  fears 
Are  little  serpents  biting  at  his  heel, — 
How  shall  a  woman  keep  her  steadfastness 
Beneath  a  frost  within  her  husband's  eyes 
Where  coldness  scorches?    Graf,  it  is  your  sorrow 
That  you  love  Armgart.     Nay,  it  is  her  sorrow 
That  she  may  not  love  you. 

GRAF. 

Woman,  it  seems, 
Has  enviable  power  to  love  or  not 
According  to  her  will. 

ARMGART. 

She  has  the  will — 

I  have — who  am  one  woman — not  to  take 
Disloyal  pledges  that  divide  her  will. 
The  man  who  marries  me  must  wed  my  Art — 
Honor  and  cherish  it,  not  tolerate. 

GRAF. 

The  man  is  yet  to  come  whose  theory 

Will  weigh  as  nought  with  you  against  his  loye. 

ARMGART. 
Whose  theory  will  plead  beside  his  love. 

GRAF. 

Himself  a  singer,  then?  who  knows  no  life 
Out  of  the  opera  books,  where  tenor  parts 
Are  found  to  suit  him? 

ARMGART. 

You  are  bitter,  Graf. 
Forgive  me;  seek  the  woman  you  deserve, 
All  grace,  all  goodness  \vho  has  not  yet  found 
A  meaning  in  her  lift-,  nor  any  cml 
Beyond  fulfilling  yours.     The  type  abounds. 

GRAF. 
And  happily,  for  the  wor!4r 


204  ARMGART. 

ARMGART. 

Yes,  happily. 

Let  it  excuse  me  that  my  kind  is  rare: 
Commonness  is  its  own  security. 

GRAF. 

Armgart,  I  would  with  all  my  soul  I  knew 
The  man  so  rare  that  he  could  make  your  life 
As  woman  sweet  to  you,  as  artist  safe. 

ARMGART. 

Oh,  I  can  live  unmatecl,  but  not  live 
Without  the  bliss  of  singing  to  the  world, 
And  feeling  all  my  world  respond  to  me. 

GRAF. 
May  it  be  lasting.     Then,  we  two  must  part? 

ARMGART. 
I  thank  you  from  my  heart  for  all.     Farewell! 


SCENE  III. 
A  YEAR  LATER. 

The  same  Salon.  WALPURGA  is  standing  looking  toward 
the  window  with  an  air  of  uneasiness.  DOCTOR 
GRAHN. 

DOCTOR. 
Where  is  my  patient,  Fraulein? 

WALPURGA. 

Fled!  escaped! 
Gone  to  rehearsal.     Is  it  dangerous? 

DOCTOR. 

No,  no;  her  throat  is  cured.     I  only  came 
To  hear  her  try  her  voice,     Had  she  yet  sung? 


ARMGART.  205 

WALPURGA. 

No;  she  had  meant  to  wait  for  you.     She  said, 
The  Doctor  has  a  right  to  my  first  song." 
Her  gratitude  was  full  oi'  little  plans, 
But  all  were  swept  away  like  gathered  flowers     . 
3y  sudden  storm.     She  saw  this  opera  bill — 
It  was  a  wasp  to  sting  her:  she  turned  pale, 
Snatched  up  her  hat  and  mufflers,  said  in  haste, 
I  go  to  Leo — to  rehearsal — none 
Shall  sing  Fidelio  to-night  but  me!' 
Then  rushed  down-stairs. 

DOCTOR  (looking  at  his  watch). 

And  this,  not  long  ago? 

WALPURGA. 
Barely  an  hour. 

DOCTOR. 

I  will  come  again, 
Returning  from  Charlottenburg  at  one. 

WALPURGA. 

Doctor,  I  feel  a  strange  presentiment. 
Are  you  quite  easy? 

DOCTOR. 

She  can  take  no  harm. 

'Twas  time  for  her  to  sing:  her  throat  is  well. 
It  was  a  fierce  attack,  and  dangerous; 
I  had  to  use  strong  remedies,  but — well! 
At  one,  dear  Fraulein,  we  shall  meet  again. 


206  ARMGART. 

SCENE  IV. 
Two  HOURS  LATER. 

WALPURGA  starts  up,  looking  toward  the  door.  ARMGART 
enters,  followed  by  LEO.  She  throws  herself  on  a 
chair  which  stands  with  its  hack  toward  the  door, 
speechless,  not  seeming  to  see  anything.  WALPURGA 
casts  a  questioning  terrified  look  at  LEO.  He  shrugs 
his  shoulders,  and  lifts  up  his  hands  behind  ARMGART, 
who  sits  like  a  helpless  image,  while  WALPURGA  takes 
off  her  hat  and  mantle. 

WALPURGA. 

Armgart,   dear  Armgart   (kneeling  and  taking  her 

hands},  only  speak  to  me, 

Your  poor  Walpurga.     Oh,  your  hands  are  cold. 
Clasp  mine,  and  warm  them!     I  will  kiss  them  warm. 

(ARMGART  looks  at  her  an  instant,  then  draws  away  her 
hands,  and,  turning  aside,  buries  her  face  against  the 
back  of  the  chair,  WALPURGA  rising  and  standing  near. ) 

(DOCTOR  GRAHN  enters.) 

DOCTOR. 

News!  stirring  news  to-day!  wonders  come  thick. 

ARMGART  (starting  up  at  the  first  sound  of  his  voice,  and 
speaking  vehemently. ) 

Yes,  thick,  thick,  thick!  and  you  have  murdered  it! 

Murdered  my  voice — poisoned  the  soul  in  me, 

And  kept  me  living. 

You  never  told  me  that  your  cruel  cures 

Were  clogging  films — a  mouldy,  dead'ning  blight — 

A  lava-mud  to  crust  and  bury  me, 

Yet  hold  me  living  in  a  deep,  deep  tomb, 

Crying  unheard  forever!     Oh,  your  cures 

Are  devil's  triumphs:  you  can  rob,  maim,  slay, 

And  keep  a  hell  on  the  other  side  your  cure 

Where  you  can  see  your  victim  quivering 


ARMOART.  207 

Between  the  teeth  of  torture— see  a  soul 
Made  keen  by  loss — all  anguish  with  a  good 
Once  known  and  gone!    (Turns  and  sinks  back  on 
her  chair.) 

0  misery,  misery! 

You  might  have  killed  me,  might  have  let  me  sleep 
After  my  happy  day  and  wake — not  here! 
In  some  new  unremembered  world — not  here, 
Where  all  is  faded,  flat — a  feast  broke  off — 
Banners  all  meaningless — -exulting  words 
Dull,  dull — a  drum  that  lingers  in  the  air 
Beating  to  melody  which  no  man  hears. 

DOCTOR  (after  a  moment's  silence). 

A  sudden  check  has  shaken  you,  poor  child! 
All  things  seem  livid,  tottering  to  your  sense, 
From  inward  tumult.     Stricken  by  a  threat 
You  see  your  terrors  only.     Tell  me,  Leo: 
Tis  not  such  utter  loss. 

(LEO,  with  a  shrug,  goes  quietly  out.) 

The  freshest  bloom 
Merely,  has  left  the  fruit;  the  fruit  itself 

ARMGART. 

Is  ruined,  withered,  is  a  thing  to  hide 

Away  from  scorn  or  pity.     Oh,  you  stand 

And  look  compassionate  now,  but  when  Death  came 

With  mercy  in  his  hands,  you  hindered  him. 

I  did  not  choose  to  live  and  have  your  pity. 

You  never  told  me,  never  gave  me  choice 

To  die  a  singer;  lightning-struck,  unmaimed. 

Or  live  what  you  would  make  me  with  your  cures — 

A  self  accursed  with  consciousness  of  change, 

A  mind  that  lives  in  nought  but  members  lopped, 

A  power  turned  to  pain — as  meaningless 

As  letters  fallen  asunder  that  once  made 

A  hymn  of  rapture.     O,  I  had  meaning  once, 

Like  day  and  sweetest  air.     What  am  I  now? 

The  millionth  woman  in  superfluous  herds. 

Why  should  I  be,  do,  think?    'Tis  thistle-seed, 

That  grows  and  grows  to  feed  the  rubbish-heap. 

Leave  me  alone! 


208  ARMGART. 

DOCTOR. 

Well,  I  will  come  again; 

Send  for  me  when  you  will,  though  but  to  rate  me. 
That  is  medicinal — a  letting  blood. 

ARMGART. 

Oh,  there  is  one  physician,  only  one, 

Who  cures  and  never  spoils.     Him  I  shall  send  for; 

He  comes  readily. 

DOCTOR  (to  WALPURGA). 

One  word,  dear  Fraulein. 


SCENE  V. 
ARMGART,  WALPURGA. 

ARMGART. 
Walpurga,  have  you  walked  this  morning? 

WALPURGA. 

No. 

ARMGART. 

Go,  then,  and  walk;  I  wish  to  be  alone. 

• 

WALPURGA. 
I  will  not  leave  you. 

ARMGART. 

Will  not,  at  my  wish? 

WALPURGA. 

Will  not,  because  you  wish  it.     Say  no  more, 
But  take  this  draught. 


ABMQAKT.  209 

ARMGART. 

The  Doctor  gave  it  you? 
It  is  an  anodyne.     Put  it  away. 
He  cured  me  of  my  voice,  and  now  he  wants 
To  cure  me  of  my  vision  and  resolve — 
Drug  me  to  sleep  that  I  may  wake  again 
Without  a  purpose,  abject  as  the  rest 
To  bear  the  yoke  of  life.     He  shall  not  cheat  me 
Of  that  fresh  strength  which  anguish  gives  the  soul, 
The  inspiration  of  revolt,  ere  rage 
Slackens  to  faltering.     Now  I  see  the  truth. 

WALPURGA  (setting  down  the  glass). 

Then  you  must  see  a  future  in  your  reach, 
With  happiness  enough  to  make  a  dower 
For  two  of  modest  claims. 

ARMGART. 

Oh,  you  intone 

That  chant  of  consolation  wherewith  ease 
Makes  itself  easier  in  the  sight  of  pain. 

WALPURGA. 
No;  I  would  not  console  you,  but  rebuke. 

ARMGART. 

That  is  more  bearable.     Forgive  me,  dear. 
Say  what  you  will.     But  now  I  want  to  write. 

(She  rises  and  moves  toward  a  table.) 

WALPURGA. 

I  say  then,  you  are  simply  fevered,  mad; 
You  cry  aloud  at  horrors  that  would  vanish 
If  you  would  change  the  light,  throw  into  shade 
The  loss  you  aggrandize,  and  let  day  fall 
On  good  remaining,  nay  on  good  refused 
Which  may  be  gain  now.     Did  you  not  reject 
A  woman's  lot  more  brilliant,  as  some  held, 
Than  any  singer's?     It  may  still  be  yours. 
Graf  Dornberg  loved  you  well. 

14 


10  ARMGART. 

ARMGART. 

Not  me,  not  me. 

He  loved  one  well  who  was  like  me  in  all 
Save  in  a  voice  which  made  that  All  unlike 
As  diamond  is  to  charcoal.     Oh,  a  man's  love! 
Think  you  he  loves  a  woman's  inner  self 
Aching  with  loss  of  loveliness? — as  mothers 
Cleave  to  the  palpitating  pain  that  dwells 
Within  their  miaformed  offspring? 

WALPUKQA. 

But  the  Graf 

Chose  you  as  simple  Armgart — had  preferred 
That  you  should  never  seek  for  any  fame 
But  such  as  matrons  have  who  rear  great  sons 
And  therefore  you  rejected  him;  but  now 

ARMGART. 

Ay,  now — now  he  would  see  me  as  I  am. 

(She  takes  up  a  hand-mirror.) 
Russet  and  songless  as  a  missel-thrush. 
An  ordinary  girl — a  plain  brown  girl, 
Who,  if  some  meaning  flash  from  out  her  words, 
Shocks  as  a  disproportioncd  thing — a  Will 
That,  like  an  arm  astretch  and  broken  off, 
Has  nought  to  hurl — the  torso  of  a  soul. 
I  sang  him  into  love  of  me:  my  song 
Was  consecration,  lifted  me  apart 
From  the  crowd  chiseled  like  me,  sister  forms, 
But  empty  of  divineness.     Nay,  my  charm 
Was  half  that  I  could  win  fame  yet  renounce! 
A  wife  with  glory  possible  absorbed 
Into  her  husband's  actual. 

WALPTJRGA. 

For  shame! 

Armgart,  you  slander  him.     What  would  you  say 
If  now  he  came  to  you  and  asked  again 
That  you  would  be  his  wife? 

ARMGART. 

No,  and  thrice  no! 

It  would  be  pitying  constancy,  not  love, 
That  brought  him  to  me  now.     I  will  not  be 


ARMGART.  211 

A  pensioner  in  marriage.     Sacraments 
Are  not  to  feed  the  paupers  of  the  world. 
If  he  were  generous — I  am  generous  too. 

WALPURGA. 
Proud,  Armgart,  but  not  generous. 

ARMGART. 

Say  no  more. 
He  will  not  know  until — 

WALPURGA. 

He  knows  already. 

ARMGART  (quickly). 
Is  he  come  back? 

WALPURGA. 

Yes,  and  will  soon  be  here. 
The  Doctor  had  twice  seen  him  and  would  go 
From  hence  again  to  see  him. 

ARMGART. 

Well,  he  knows. 
It  is  all  one. 

WALPURGA. 

What  if  he  were  outside? 
I  hear  a  footstep  in  the  ante-room. 

ARMGART  (raising  herself  and  assuming  calmness). 

Why  let  him  come,  of  course.     I  shall  behave 
Like  what  I  am,  a  common  personage 
Who  looks  for  nothing  but  civility. 
I  shall  not  play  the  fallen  heroine. 
Assume  a  tragic  part  and  throw  out  cues 
For  a  beseeching  lover. 

WALPDRGA. 

Some  one  raps. 

(Goes  to  tlw  door.) 
A  letter — from  the  Graf. 


212  ARMGART. 

ARMGART. 

Then  open  it. 
(WALPURGA  still  offers  it.) 
Nay,  my  head  swims.     Eead  it.     I  cannot  see. 

(WALPURGA  opens  it,  reads  and  pauses.) 
Eead  it.     Have  done!    No  matter  what  it  is. 

WALPURGA  (reads  in  a  low,  hesitating  voice). 

<(  I  am  deeply  moved — my  heart  is  rent,  to  hear  of  your 
illness  and  its  cruel  results,  just  now  communicated  to 
me  by  Dr.  Grahn.  But  surely  it  is  possible  that  this 
result  may  not  be  permanent.  For  youth  such  as  yours, 
Time  may  hold  in  store  something  more  than  resignation: 
who  shall  say  that  it  does  not  hold  renewal?  I  have  not 
dared  to  ask  admission  to  you  in  the  hours  of  a  recent 
shock,  but  I  cannot  depart  on  a  long  mission  without 
tendering  my  sympathy  and  my  farewell.  I  start  this 
evening  for  the  Caucasus,  and  thence  I  proceed  to  India, 
where  I  am  intrusted  by  the  Government  with  business 
which  may  be  of  long  duration." 

(WALPURGA  sits  down  dejectedly.) 

ARMGART  (after  a  slight  shudder,  bitterly). 

The  Graf  has  much  discretion.     I  am  glad. 

He  spares  us  both  a  pain,  not  seeing  me. 

What  I  like  least  is  that  consoling  hope-^ 

That  empty  cup,  so  neatly  ciphered  "  Time," 

Handed  me  as  a  cordial  for  despair. 

(Sloivly  and  dreamily)  Time — what  a  word  to  fling  as 

Charity! 

Bland  neutral  word  for  slow,  dull-beating  pain — 
Days,  months,  and  years! — If  I  would  wait  for  them. 

(She  takes  up  her  hat  and  puts  it  on,  then  wraps  her 
mantle  round  her.  (WALPURGA  leaves  the  room.) 

Why,  this  is  but  beginning.     WALP.  re-enters.)     Kiss 

me,  dear. 

I  am  going  now — alone — out — for  a  walk. 
Say  you  will  never  wound  me  any  more 
With  such  cajolery  as  nurses  iise 
To  patients  amorous  of  a  crippled  life. 
Flatter  the  blind:  I  see. 


ABMGART.  213 

WALPURGA. 

Well,  I  was  wrong. 

In  haste  to  soothe,  I  snatched  at  flickers  merely. 
Believe  me,  I  will  flatter  you  no  more. 

ARMGABT. 

Bear  witness,  I  am  calm.     I  read  my  lot 
As  soberly  as  if  it  were  a  tale 
Writ  by  a  creeping  feuilletonist  and  called 
"The  Woman's  Lot:  a  Tale  of  Everyday ": 
A  middling  woman's,  to  impress  the  world 
With  high  superfluousness;  her  thoughts  a  crop 
Of  chick-weed  errors  or  of  pot-herb  facts, 
Smiled  at  like  some  child's  drawing  on  a  slate. 

"Genteel?"     "  0  yes,  gives  lessons;  not  so  good 
As  any  man's  would  be,  but  cheaper  far." 

"Pretty?"     "No;  yet  she  makes  a  figure  fit 
For  good  society.     Poor  thing,  she  sews 
Both  late  and  early,  turns  and  alters  all 
To  suit  the  changing  mode.     Some  widower 

Might  do  well,  marrying  her;  but  in  these  days! 

Well,  she  can  somewhat  eke  her  narrow  gains 

By  writing,  just  to  furnish  her  with  gloves 

And  droschkies  in  the  rain.     They  print  her  things 

Often  for  charity." — Oh,  a  dog's  life! 

A  harnessed  dogX  that  draws  a  little  cart 

Voted  a  nuisance!     I  am  going  now. 

WALPUBGA. 
Not  now,  the  door  is  locked. 

ABMGABT. 

Give  me  the  key! 

WALPUBGA. 

Locked  on  the  outside.     Gretchen  has  the  key: 
She  is  gone  on  errands. 


Your  prisoner? 


ARMGART. 

What,  you  dare  to  keep  me 


214  ARMGAET. 

WALPUEGA. 

And  have  I  not  been  yours? 
Your  wish  has  been  a  bolt  to  keep  me  in. 
Perhaps  that  meddling  woman  whom  you  paint 
With  far-off  scorn 

ARMGAET. 

I  paint  what  I  must  be! 
What  is  my  soul  to  me  without  the  voice 
That  gave  it  freedom? — gave  it  one  grand  touch 
And  made  it  nobly  human? — Prisoned  now, 
Prisoned  in  all  the  petty  mimicries 
Called  woman's  knowledge,  that  will  fit  the  world 
As  doll-clothes  fit  a  man.     I  can  do  nought 
Better  than  what  a  million  women  do — 
Must  drudge  among  the  crowd  and  feel  my  life 
Beating  upon  the  world  without  response, 
Beating  with  passion  through  an  insect's  horn 
That  moves  a  millet-seed  laboriously. 
If  I  would  do  it! 

WALPUEGA  (coldly). 

And  why  should  you  not? 

ARMGART  (turning  quickly]. 

Because  Heaven  made  me  royal — wrought  me  out 

With  subtle  finish  toward  pre-eminence, 

Made  every  channel  of  my  soul  converge 

To  one  high  function,  and  then  flung  me  down, 

That  breaking  I  might  turn  to  subtlest  pain. 

An  inborn  passion  gives  a  rebel's  right: 

I  would  rebel  and  die  in  twenty  worlds 

Sooner  than  bear  the  yoke  of  thwarted  life, 

Each  keenest  sense  turned  into  keen  distaste, 

Hunger  not  satisfied  but  kept  alive 

Breathing  in  languor  half  a  century. 

All  the  world  now  is  but  a  rack  of  threads 

To  twist  and  dwarf  me  into  pettiness 

And  basely  feigned  content,  the  placid  mask 

Of  woman's  misery 


AEMGAET.  %i6 

WALPURGA  (indignantly). 

Ay,  such  a  mask 

As  the  few  born  like  you  to  easy  joy, 
Cradled  in  privilege,  take  for  natural 
On  all  the  lowly  faces  that  must  look 
Upward  to  you !     What  revelation  now 
Shows  you  the  mask  or  gives  presentiment 
Of  sadness  hidden?    You  who  every  day 
These  five  years  saw  me  limp  to  wait  on  you 
And  thought  the  order  perfect  which  gave  me, 
The  girl  without  pretension  to  be  aught, 
A  splendid  cousin  for  my  happiness: 
To  watch  the  night  through  when  her  brain  was  fired 
With  too  much  gladness — listen,  always  listen 
To  what  she  felt,  who  having  power  had  right 
To  feel  exorbitantly,  and  submerge 
The  souls  around  her  with  the  poured-out  flood 
Of  what  must  be  ere  she  were  satisfied! 
That  was  feigned  patience,  was  it?    Why  not  love, 
Love  nurtured  even  with  that  strength  of  self 
Which  found  no  room  save  in  another's  life? 
Oh,  such  as  I  know  joy  by  negatives, 
And  all  their  deepest  passion  is  a  pang 
Till  they  accept  their  pauper's  heritage, 
And  meekly  live  from  out  the  general  store 
Of  joy  they  were  born  stripped  of.     I  accept — 
Nay,  now  would  sooner  choose  it  than  the  wealth 
Of  natures  you  call  royal,  who  can  live 
In  mere  mock  knowledge  of  their  fellows'  woe, 
Thinking  their  smiles  may  heal  it. 

ARMGART  (tremulously). 

Nay,  Walpurga, 

I  did  not  make  a  palace  of  my  joy 
To  shut  the  world's  truth  from  me.     All  my  good 
Was  that  I  touched  the  world  and  made  a  part 
In  the  world's  dower  of  beauty,  strength  and  bliss; 
It  was  the  glimpse  of  consciousness  divine 
Which  pours  out  day,  and  sees  the  day  is  good. 
Now  I  am  fallen  dark;  I  sit  in  gloom, 
Remembering  bitterly.     Yet  you  speak  truth; 
I  wearied  you,  it  seems;  took  all  your  help 
As  cushioned  nobles  use  a  weary  serf, 
Not  looking  at  his  face. 


316  ARMGART. 

WALPURGA. 

Oh,  I  but  stand 

As  a  small  symbol  for  the  mighty  sum 
Of  claims  unpaid  to  needy  myriads; 
I  think  you  never  set  your  loss  beside 
That  mighty  deficit.     Is  your  work  gone — 
The  prouder  queenly  work  that  paid  itself 
And  yet  was  overpaid  with  men's  applause? 
Are  you  no  longer  chartered,  privileged, 
But  sunk  to  simple  woman's  penury, 
To  ruthless  Nature's  chary  average — 
Where  is  the  rebel's  right  for  you  alone? 
Noble  rebellion  lifts  a  common  load; 
But  what  is  he  who  flings  his  own  load  off 
And  leaves  his  fellows  toiling?    Eebel's  right? 
Say  rather,  the  deserter's.     Oh,  you  smiled 
From  your  clear  height  on  all  the  million  lots 
Which  yet  you  brand  as  abject. 

ARMGART. 

I  was  blind 

With  too  much  happiness;  true  vision  comes 
Only,  it  seems,  with  sorrow.     Were  there  one 
This  moment  near  me,  suffering  what  I  feel, 
And  needing  me  for  comfort  in  her  pang — 
Then  it  were  worth  the  while  to  live;  not  else. 

WALPURGA. 

One — near  you — why,  they  throng!  you  hardly  stir 
But  your  act  touches  them.     We  touch  afar. 
For  did  not  swarthy  slaves  of  yesterday 
Leap  in  their  bondage  at  the  Hebrews'  flight, 
Which  touch  them  through  the  thrice  millennial  dark? 
But  you  can  find  the  sufferer  you  need 
With  touch  less  subtle. 

ARMGART. 

Who  has  need  of  me? 

WALPURGA. 
Love  finds  the  need  it  fills,     But  you  are  hard. 


ABMGABT.  217 

ARMGABT. 

Is  it  not  you,  Walpurga,  who  are  hard? 
You  humored  all  my  wishes  till  to-day, 
When  fate  has  blighted  me. 

WALPURGA. 

You  would  not  hear 

The  "  chant  of  consolation  ";  words  of  hope 
Only  embittered  you.     Then  hear  the  truth — 
A  lame  girl's  truth,  whom  no  one  ever  praised 
For  being  cheerful.     "  It  is  well,"  they  said: 
"  Were  she  cross-grained  she  could  not  be  endured." 
A  word  of  truth  from  her  had  startled  you;  9 

But  you — you  claimed  the  universe;  nought  less 
Than  all  existence  working  in  sure  tracks 
Toward  your  supremacy.     The  wheels  might  scathe 
A  myriad  destinies  —  nay,  must  perforce; 
But  yours  they  must  keep  clear  of ;  just  for  yon 
The  seething  atoms  through  the  firmament 
Must  bear  a  human  heart  —  which  you  had  not! 
For  what  is  it  to  you  that  women,  men, 
Plod,  faint,  are  weary,  and  espouse  despair 
Of  aught  but  fellowship?    Save  that  you  spurn 
To  be  among  them?    Now,  then,  you  are  lame  — 
Maimed,  as  you  said,  and  leveled  with  the  crowd: 
Call  it  new  birth  —  birth  from  that  monstrous  Self 
Which,  smiling  down  upon  a  race  oppressed, 
Says,  "All  is  good,  for  I  am  throned  at  ease." 
Dear  Anngart — nay,  you  tremble — I  am  cruel. 

ARMGART. 

0  no!  hark!    Some  one  knocks.     Come  in! — come  in! 

(Enter  LEO.) 

LEO. 

See,  Gretchen  let  me  in.     I  could  not  rest 
Longer  away  from  you. 

ARMGART. 

Sit  down,  dear  Leo. 
Walpurga,  I  would  speak  with  him  alone. 

(WALPUKGA  goes  out.) 


218  ARMGART. 

LEO  (hesitatingly). 
You  mean  to  walk? 

ARMGABT. 

No,  I  shall  stay  within. 

(She  takes  off  her  hat  and  mantle,  and  sits  doivn  immedi- 
ately.    After  a  pause,  speaking  in  a  subdued  tone  to 
LEO.) 
How  old  are  you? 

LEO. 

Threescore  and  five. 

ARMGABT. 

That's  old. 

I  never  thought  till  now  how  you  have  lived. 
They  hardly  ever  play  your  music? 

LEO  (raising  his  eyebrows  and  throwing  out  his  lip). 

No! 

Schubert  too  wrote  for  silence:  half  his  work 
Lay  like  a  frozen  Ehine  till  summers  came 
That  warmed  the  grass  above  him.     Even  so! 
His  music  lives  now  with  a  mighty  youth. 

ARMGABT. 
Do  you  think  yours  will  live  when  you  are  dead? 

LEO. 

Pfui!     The  time  was,  I  drank  that  home-brewed  wine. 
And  found  it  heady,  while  my  blood  was  young: 
Now  it  scarce  warms  me.     Tipple  it  as  I  may, 
I  am  sober  still,  and  say:  "  My  old  friend  Leo, 
Much  grain  is  wasted  in  the  world  and  rots; 
Why  not  thy  handful?" 

ABMGART. 

Strange!  since  I  have  known  you 
Till  now  I  never  wondered  how  you  live. 
When  I  sang  well — that  was  your  jubilee. 
But  you  were  old  already. 


ARMGAKT.  219 

LEO. 

Yes,  child,  yes: 

Youth  thinks  itself  the  goal  of  each  old  life; 
Age  has  but  traveled  from  a  far-off  time 
Just  to  be  ready  for  youth's  service.     Well! 
It  was  my  chief  delight  to  perfect  you. 

ARMGART. 

Good  Leo!    You  have  lived  on  little  joys. 

But  your  delight  in  me  is  crushed  forever. 

Your  pains,  where  are  they  now?  They  shaped  intent. 

Which  action  frustrates;  shaped  an  inward  sense 

Which  is  but  keen  despair,  the  agony 

Of  highest  vision  in  the  lowest  pit. 

LEO. 

Nay,  nay,  I  have  a  thought:  keep  to  the  stage, 
To  drama  without  song;  for  you  can  act — 
Who  knows  how  well,  when  all  the  soul  is  poured 
Into  that  sluice  alone? 

ARMGART. 

I  know,  and  you: 

The  second  or  third  best  in  tragedies 
That  cease  to  touch  the  fibre  of  the  time. 
No;  song  is  gone,  but  nature's  other  gift, 
Self -judgment,  is  not  gone.     Song  was  my  speech, 
And  with  its  impulse  only,  action  came: 
Song  was  the  battle's  onset,  when  cool  purpose 
Glows  into  rage,  becomes  a  warring  god 
And  moves  the  limbs  with  miracle.     But  now — 
Oh,  I  should  stand   hemmed  in  with  thoughts  and 

rules — 

Say  "  This  way  passion  acts,"  yet  never  feel 
The  might  of  passion.     How  should  I  declaim? 
As  monsters  write  with  feet  instead  of  hands. 
I  will  not  feed  on  doing  great  tasks  ill, 
Dull  the  world's  sense  with  mediocrity, 
And  live  by  trash  that  smothers  excellence. 
One  gift  I  hud  that  ranked  me  with  the  best — 
The  secret  of  my  frame — and  that  is  gone. 
For  all  life  now  I  am  a  broken  thing. 
But  silence  there!     Good  Leo,  advise  me  now. 


220  ARMGAKT. 

I  would  take  humble  work  and  do  it  .well — 
Teach  music,  singing — what  I  can — not  here, 
But  in  some  smaller  town  where  I  may  bring 
The  method  you  have  taught  me,  pass  your  gift 
To  others  who  can  use  it  for  delight. 
You  think  I  can  do  that? 

(She pauses  with  a  sob  in  her  voice.) 

LEO. 

Yes,  yes,  dear  child! 

And  it  were  well,  perhaps,  to  change  the  place — 
Begin  afresh  as  I  did  when  I  left 
Vienna  with  a  heart  half  broken. 

ABMGART  (roused  by  surprise). 

You? 

LEO. 

Well,  it  is  long  ago.     But  I  had  lost — 
No  matter!     We  must  bury  our  dead  joys 
And  live  above  them  with  a  living  world. 
But  whither,  think  you,  you  would  like  to  go? 

ARMGART. 
To  Freiburg. 


It  is  too  small. 


LEO. 
In  the  Breisgau?    And  why  there? 

AEMGABT. 

Walpurga  was  born  there, 
And  loves  the  place.     She  quitted  it  for  me 
These  five  years  past.     Now  I  will  take  her  there. 
Dear  Leo,  I  will  bury  my  dead  joy. 

LEO. 

Mothers  do  so,  bereaved;  then  learn  to  love 
Another's  living  child, 


ARMQART.  221 

ARMGART. 

Oh,  it  is  hard 

To  take  the  little  corpse,  and  lay  it  low, 
And  say,  "None  misses  it  but  me." 

She  sings 

I  mean  Paulina  sings  Fidelio, 

And  they  will  welcome  her  to-night. 

LEO. 

Well,  well, 
'Tis  better  that  our  griefs  should  not  spread  far. 


HOW  LISA  LOVED  THE  KING. 


Six  hundred  years  ago,  in  Dante's  time, 

Before  his  cheek  was  furrowed  by  deep  rhyme — 

When  Europe,  fed  afresh  from  Eastern  story. 

Was  like  a  garden  tangled  with  the  glory 

Of  flowers  hand-planted  and  of  flowers  air-sown, 

Climbing  and  trailing,  budding  and  full-blown, 

Where  purple  bells  are  tossed  amid  pink  stars, 

And  springing  blades,  green  troops  in  innocent  wars, 

Crowd  every  shady  spot  of  teeming  earth, 

Making  invisible  motion  visible  birth — 

Six  hundred  years,  ago,  Palermo  town 

Kept  holiday.     A  deed  of  great  renown, 

A  high  revenge,  had  freed  it  from  the  yoke 

Of  hated  Frenchmen,  and  from  Calpe's  rock 

To  where  the  Bosporus  caught  the  earlier  sun, 

JTwas  told  that  Pedro,  King  of  Aragon, 

Was  welcomed  master  of  all  Sicily, 

A  royal  knight,  supreme  as  kings  should  be 

In  strength  and  gentleness  that  make  high  chivalry. 

Spain  was  the  favorite  home  of  knightly  grace, 
Where  generous  men  rode  steeds  of  generous  race; 
Both  Spanish,  yet  half  Arab,  both  inspired 
By  mutual  spirit,  that  each  motion  fired 
With  beauteous  response,  like  minstrelsy 
Afresh  fulfilling  fresh  expectancy. 
So  when  Palermo  made  high  festival, 
The  joy  of  matrons  and  of  maidens  all 
Was  the  mock  terror  of  the  tournament, 
Where  safety,  with  the  glimpse  of  danger  blent, 
Took  exultation  as  from  epic  song, 
Which  greatly  tells  the  pains  that  to  great  life  belong 
And  in  all  eyes  King  Pedro  was  the  king 
Of  cavaliers:  as  in  a  full-gemmed  ring 
The  largest  ruby,  or  as  that  bright  star 
Whose  shining  shows  us  where  the  Hyads  are. 
His  the  best  jennet,  and  he  sat  it  best; 
His  weapon,  whether  tilting  or  in  rest, 
222 


HOW   LISA   LOVED   THE   KING.  223 

Was  worthiest  watching,  and  his  face  once  seen 

Gave  tc  the  promise  of  his  royal  mien 

Such  rich  fulfillment  as  the  opened  eyes 

Of  a  loved  sleeper,  or  the  long-watched  rise 

Of  vernal  day,  whose  joy  o'er  stream  and  meadow  flies. 

But  of  the  maiden  forms  that  thick  enwreathed 

The  broad  piazza  and  sweet  witchery  breathed, 

With  innocent  faces  budding  all  arow 

From  balconies  and  windows  high  and  low, 

Who  was  it  felt  the  deep  mysterious  glow. 

The  impregnation  with  supernal  fire 

Of  young  ideal  love — transformed  desire, 

Whose  passion  is  but  worship  of  that  Best 

Taught  by  the  many-mingled  creed  of  each  young 

breast? 

'Twas  gentle  Lisa,  of  no  noble  line, 
Child  of  Bernardo,  a  rich  Florentine, 
Who  from  his  merchant-city  hither  came 
To  trade  in  drugs;  yet  kept  an  honest  fame, 
And  had  the  virtue  not  to  try  and  sell 
Drugs  that  had  none.     He  loved  his  riches  well, 
But  loved  them  chiefly  for  his  Lisa's  sake, 
Whom  with  a  father's  care  he  sought  to  make 
The  bride  of  some  true  honorable  man: — 
Of  Perdicone  (so  the  rumor  ran), 
Whose  birth  wus  higher  than  his  fortunes  were; 
For  still  your  trader  likes  a  mixture  fair 
Of  blood  that  hurries  to  some  higher  strain 
Than  reckoning  money's  loss  and  money's  gain. 
And  of  such  mixture  good  may  surely  come: 
Lords'  scions  so  may  learn  to  cast  a  sum, 
A  trader's  grandson  bear  a  well-set  head, 
And  have  less  conscious  manners,  better  bred; 
Nor,  when  he  tries  to  be  polite,  be  rude  instead. 

Twas  Perdicone's  friends  made  overtures 
To  good  Bernardo:  so  one  dame  assures 
Her  neighbor  dame  who  notices  the  youth 
Fixing  his  eyes  on  Lisa;  and  in  truth 
Eyes  that  could  see  her  on  this  summer  day 
Might  find  it  hard  to  turn  another  way. 
She  had  a  pensive  beauty,  yet  not  sad; 
Rather,  like  minor  cadences  that  glad 
The  hearts  of  little  birds  amid  spring  boughs; 
And  oft  the  trumpet  or  the  joust  would  rouse 


224  HOW  LISA   LOVED  THE   KING. 

Pulses  that  gave  her  cheek  a  finer  glow, 

Parting  her  lips  that  seemed  a  mimic  bow 

By  chiseling  Love  for  play  in  choral  wrought, 

Then  quickened  by  him  with  passionate  thought, 

The  soul  that  trembled  in  the  lustrous  night 

Of  slow  long  eyes.     Her  body  was  so  slight, 

It  seemed  she  could  have  floated  in  the  sky, 

And  with  the  angelic  choir  made  symphony; 

But  in  her  cheek's  rich  tinge,  and  in  the  dark 

Of  darkest  hair  and  eyes,  she  bore  a  mark 

Of  kinship  to  her  generous  mother  earth, 

The  fervid  land  that  gives  the  plumy  palm-trees  birth 

She  saw  not  Perdicone;  her  young  mind 

Dreamed  not  that  any  man  had  ever  pined 

For  such  a  little  simple  maid  as  she: 

She  had  but  dreamed  how  heavenly  it  would  be 

To  love  some  hero  noble,  beauteous,  great, 

Who  would  live  stories  worthy  to  narrate, 

Like  Eoland,  or  the  warriors  of  Troy, 

The  Cid,  or  Amadis,  or  that  fair  boy 

Who  conquered  everything  beneath  the  sun, 

And  somehow,  sometime,  died  at  Babylon 

Fighting  the  Moors.     For  heroes  all  were  good 

And  fair  as  that  archangel  who  withstood 

The  Evil  One,  the  author  of  all  wrong — 

That  Evil  One  who  made  the  French  so  strong; 

And  now  the  flower  of  heroes  must  be  he 

Who  drove  those  tyrant's  from  dear  Sicily, 

So  that  her  maids  might  walk  to  vespers  tranquilly. 

Young  Lisa  saw  this  hero  in  the  king, 

And  as  wood-lilies  that  sweet  odors  bring 

Might  dream  the  light  that  opes  their  modest  eyne 

Was  lily-odored, — and  as  rights  divine, 

Round  turf -laid  altars,  or  'neath  roofs  of  stone, 

Draw  sanctity  from  out  the  heart  alone 

That  loves  and  worships,  so  the  miniature 

Perplexed  of  her  soul's  world,  all  virgin  pure, 

Filled  with  heroic  virtues  that  bright  form,     . 

Kaona's  royalty,  the  finished  norm 

Of  horsemanship — the  half  of  chivalry: 

For  how  could  generous  men  avengers  be, 

Save  as  God's  messengers  on  coursers  fleet? — 

These,  scouring  earth,  made  Spain  with  Syria  meet 


HOW    LISA    LOVED   THE   KING.  225 

In  one  self  world  where  the  same  right  had  sway, 
And  good  must  grow  as  grew  the  blessed  day. 
No  more;  great  Love  his  essence  had  endured 
With  Pedro's  form,  and  entering  subdued 
The  soul  of  Lisa,  fervid  and  intense, 
Proud  in  its  choice  of  proud  obedience 
To  hardship  glorified  by  perfect  reverence. 

Sweet  Lisa  homeward  carried  that  dire  guest, 
And  in  her  chamber  through  the  hours  of  rest 
The  darkness  was  alight  for  her  with  sheen 
Of  arms,  and  plumed  helm,  and  bright  between 
Their  commoner  gloss,  like  the  pure  living  spring 
'Twixt  porphyry  lips,  or  living  bird's  bright  wing 
'Twixt  golden  wires,  the  glances  of  the  king 
Flashed  on  her  soul,  and  waked  vibrations  there 
Of  known  delights  love-mixed  to  new  and  rare: 
The  impalpable  dream  was  turned  to  breathing  flesh, 
Chill  thought  of  summer  to  the  warm  close  mesh 
Of  sunbeams  held  between  the  citron-leaves, 
Clothing  her  life  of  life.     Oh,  she  believes 
That  she  could  be  content  if  he  but  knew 
(Her  poor  small  self  could  claim  no  other  due) 
How  Lisa's  lowly  love  hud  highest  reach 
Of  winged  passion,  whereto  winged  speech 
Would  be  scorched  remnants  left  by  mounting  flame. 
Though,  had  she  such  lame  message,  were  it  blame 
To  tell  what  greatness  dwelt  in  her,  what  rank 
She  held  in  loving?    Modest  maidens  shrank 
From  telling  love  that  fed  on  selfish  hope; 
But  love,  as  hopeless  as  the  shattering  song 
Wailed  for  loved  beings  who  have  joined  the  throng 

Of  mighty  dead  ones Nay,  but  she  was  weak — 

Knew  only  prayers  and  ballads — could  not  speak 
With  eloquence  save  what  dumb  creatures  have, 
That  with  small  cries  and  touches  small  boons  crave. 

She  watched  all  day  that  she  might  see  him  pass 
With  knights  and  ladies;  but  she  said,  "Alas! 
Though  he  should  see  me,  it  were  all  as  one 
He  saw  a  pigeon  sitting  on  the  stone 
Of  wall  or  balcony:  some  colored  spot 
His  eye  just  sees,  his  mind  regardeth  not. 
I  have  no  music-touch  that  could  bring  nigh 
My  love  to  his  soul's  hearing.     I  shall  die, 
' 


226  HOW   LISA    LOVED   THE    KIKG. 

And  he  will  never  know  who  Lisa  was  — 

The  trader's  child,  whose  soaring  spirit  rose 

As  hedge-born  aloe-flowers  that  rarest  years  disclose. 

"  For  were  I  now  a  fair  deep-breasted  queen 
A-horseback,  with  blonde  hair,  and  tunic  green 
Gold-bordered,  like  Costanza,  I  should  need 
No  change  within  to  make  me  queenly  there; 
For  they  the  royal-hearted  women  are 
Who  nobly  love  the  noblest,  yet  have  grace 
For  needy  suffering  lives  in  lowliest  place, 
Carrying  a  choicer  sunlight  in  their  smile, 
The  heavenliest  ray  that  pitieth  the  vile. 
My  love  is  such,  it  cannot  choose  but  soar 
Up  to  the  highest;  yet  for  evermore, 
Though  I  were  happy,  throned  beside  the  king, 
I  should  be  tender  to  each  little  thing 
With  hurt  warm  breast,  that  had  no  speech  to  tell 
Its  inward  pang,  and  I  would  soothe  it  well 
With  tender  touch  and  with  a  low  soft  moan 
For  company:  my  dumb  love-pang  is  lone, 
Prisoned  as  topaz-beam  within  a  rough-garbed  stone.'"' 

So,  inward-wailing,  Lisa  passed  her  days. 

Each  night  the  August  moon  with  changing  phase 

Looked  broader,  harder  on  her  unchanged  pain; 

Each  noon  the  heat  lay  heavier  again 

On  her  despair;  until  her  body  frail 

Shrank  like  the  snow  that  watchers  in  the  vale 

See  narrowed  on  the  height  each  summer  morn; 

While  her  dark  glance  burned  larger,  more  forlorn, 

As  if  the  soul  within  her  all  on  fire 

Made  of  her  being  one  swift  funeral  pyre. 

Father  and  mother  saw  with  sad  dismay 

The  meaning  of  their  riches  melt  away: 

For  without  Lisa  what  would  sequins  buy? 

What  wish  were  left  if  Lisa  were  to  die? 

Through  her  they  cared  for  summers  still  to  come, 

Else  they  would  be  as  ghosts  without  a  home 

In  any  flesh  that  could  feel  glad  desire. 

They  pay  the  best  physicians,  never  tire 

Of  seeking  what  will  soothe  her,  promising 

That  aught  she  longed  for,  though  it  were  a  thing 

Hard  to  be  come  at  as  the  Indian  snow, 

Or  roses  that  on  alpine  summits  blow  — 


HOW   LISA    LOVED   THE    KING.  227 

It  should  be  hers.     She  answers  with  low  voice, 
She  longs  for  death  alone  —  death  is  her  choice; 
Death  is  the  King  who  never  did  think  scorn, 
But  rescues  every  meanest  soul  to  sorrow  born. 

Yet  one  day,  as  they  bent  above  her  bed 
And  watched  her  in  brief  sleep,  her  drooping  head 
Turned  gently,  as  the  thirsty  flowers  that  feel 
Some  moist  revival  through  their  petals  steal, 
And  little  flutterings  of  her  lids  and  lips 
Told  of  such  dreamy  joy  as  sometimes  dips 
A  skyey  shadow  in  the  mind's  poor  pool. 
She  oped  her  eyes,  and  turned  their  dark  gems  full 
Upon  her  father,  as  in  utterance  dumb 
Of  some  new  prayer  that  in  her  sleep  had  come. 
"What  is  it,  Lisa?"    "Father,  I  would  see 
Minuccio,  the  great  singer;  bring  him  me." 
For  always,  night  and  day,  her  unstilled  thought, 
Wandering  all  o'er  its  little  world,  had  sought 
How  she  could  reach,  by  some  soft  pleading  touch, 
King  Pedro's  soul,  that  she  who  loved  so  much 
Dying,  might  have  a  place  within  his  mind  — 
A  little  grave  which  he  would  sometimes  find 
And  plant  some  flower  on  it  —  some  thought,  some 

memory  kind. 

Till  in  her  dream  she  saw  Minuccio 
Touching  his  viola,  and  chanting  low 
A  strain  that,  falling  on  her  brokenly, 
Seemed  blossoms  lightly  blown  from  off  a  tree, 
Each  burdened  with  a  word  that  was  a  scent — 
Eaona,  Lisa,  love,  death,  tournament; 
Then  in  her  dream  she  said,  "  He  sings  of  me — 
Might  be  my  messenger;  ah,  now  I  see 
The  king  is  listening —  Then  she  awoke, 

And,  missing  her  dear  dream,  that  new-born  longing 
spoke. 

She  longed  for  music:  that  was  natural; 

Physicians  said  it  was  medicinal; 

The  humors  might  be  schooled  by  true  consent 

Of  a  fine  tenor  and  fine  instrument; 

In  brief,  good  music,  mixed  with  doctor's  stuff, 

Apollo  with  Asklepios — enough  ! 

Minuccio,  entreated,  gladly  came. 

(He  was  a  singer  of  most  gentle  fame — 


228  HOW   LISA   LOVED  THE   KING. 

A  noble,  kindly  spirit,  not  elate 

That  he  was  famous,  but  that  song  was  great — 

Would  sing  as  finely  to  this  suffering  child 

As  at  the  court  where  princes  on  him  smiled.) 

Gently  he  entered  and  sat  down  by  her, 

Asking  what  sort  of  strain  she  would  prefer — 

The  voice  alone,  or  voice  with  viol  wed; 

Then,  when  she  chose  the  last,  he  preluded 

With  magic  hand,  that  summoned  from  the  strings 

Aerial  spirits,  rare  yet  vibrant  wings 

That  fanned  the  pulses  of  his  listener, 

And  waked  each  sleeping  sense  with  blissful  stir. 

Her  cheek  already  showed  a  slow  faint  blush, 

But  soon  the  voice,  in  pure  full  liquid  rush, 

Made  all  the  passion,  that  till  now  she  felt, 

Seem  but  cool  waters  that  in  warmer  melt. 

Finished  the  song,  she  prayed  to  be  alone 

With  kind  Minuccio;  for  her  faith  had  grown 

To  trust  him  as  if  missioned  like  a  priest 

With  some  high  grace,  that  when  his  singing  ceased 

Still  made  him  wiser,  more  magnanimous 

Than  common  men  who  had  no  genius. 

So  laying  her  small  hand  within  his  palm, 

She  told  him  how  that  secret  glorious  harm 

Of  loftiest  loving  had  befallen  her; 

That  death,  her  only  hope,  most  bitter  were, 

If  when  she  died  her  love  must  perish  too 

As  songs  unsung  and  thoughts  unspoken  do, 

Which  else  might  live  within  another  breast. 

She  said,  "  Minuccio,  the  grave  were  rest, 

If  I  were  sure,  that  lying  cold  and  lone, 

My  love,  my  best  of  life,  had  safely  flown 

And  nestled  in  the  bosom  of  the  king; 

See,  'tis  a  small  weak  bird,  with  unfledged  wing, 

But  you  will  carry  it  for  me  secretly, 

And  bear  it  to  the  king,  then  come  to  me 

And  tell  me  it  is  safe,  and  I  shall  go 

Content,  knowing  that  he  I  love  my  love  doth  know.* 

Then  she  wept  silently,  but  each  large  tear 
Made  pleading  music  to  the  inward  ear 
Of  good  Minuccio:     "  Lisa,  trust  in  me," 
He  said,  and  kissed  her  fingers  loyally; 
"  It  is  sweet  law  to  me  to  do  your  will, 


HOW    LISA    LOVED   TH  K    KING.  229 

And  ere  the  sun  his  round  shall  thrice  fulfill, 

I  hope  to  bring  you  news  of  such  rare  skill 

As  amulets  have,  that  aches  in  trusting  bosoms  still." 

He  needed  not  to  pause  and  first  devise 

How  he  should  tell  the  king;  for  in  nowise 

Were  such  love-message  worthily  bested 

Save  in  fine  verse  by  music  rendered. 

He  sought  a  poet-friend,  a  Siennese, 

And  "Mioo,  mine,"  he  said,  "full  oft  to  please 

Thy  whim  of  sadness  I  have  sung  thee  strains 

To  make  thee  weep  in  verse:  now  pay  my  pains, 

And  write  me  a  canzon  divinely  sad, 

Sinlessly  passionate  and  meekly  mad 

With  young  despair,  speaking  a  maiden's  heart 

Of  fifteen  summers,  who  would  fain  depart 

From  ripening  life's  new-urgent  mystery — 

Love-choice  of  one  too  high  her  love  to  be — 

But  cannot  yield  her  breath  till  she  has  poured 

Her  strength  away  in  this  hotrbleeding  word 

Telling  the  secret  of  her  soul  to  her  soul's  lord." 

Said  Mico,  "Nay,  that  thought  is  poesy, 
I  need  but  listen  as  it  sings  to  me. 
Come  thou  again  to-morrow."    The  third  day, 
When  linked  notes  had  perfected  the  lay, 
Minuccio  had  his  summons  to  the  court 
To  make,  as  he  was  wont,  the  moments  short 
Of  ceremonious  dinner  to  the  king. 
This  was  the  time  when  he  had  meant  to  bring 
Melodious  message  of  young  Lisa's  love: 
He  waited  till  the  air  had  ceased  to  move 
To  ringing  silver,  till  Falernian  wine 
Made  quickened  sense  with  quietude  combine, 
And  then   with    passionate   descant   made  each  ear 
incline. 

^,ove,  thou  didst  see  me,  light  as  morning's  breath, 
foaming  a  garden  in  a  joyous  error, 
Laughing  at  chases  vain,  a  happy  child, 
Till  of  thy  couitti'iitnirc  tin'  alluring  terror 
In  majesty  from  out  the  bloa*<nti*  smili'il, 
From  out  their  life  seeming  a  beauteous  Death. 

0  Love,  who  so  didst  choose  me  for  thine  own, 

////A-  Ulllf  /*/'-  fn  tit;/  i/rtiit  x 


230  HOW    LISA    LOVED   THE    KING. 

See  now,  it  is  the  honor  of  thy  throne 
That  what  thou  gavest  perish  not  away, 
Nor  leave  some  sweet  remembrance  to  atone 
•  By  life  that  will  be  for  the  brief  life  gone  : 
Hear,  ere  the  shroud  o'er  these  frail  limbs  be  thrown — 
Since  every  king  is  vassal  unto  thee, 
My  heart's  lord  needs  must  listen  loyally — 
0  tell  him  I  am  waiting  for  my  Death  ! 

Tell  him,  for  that  he  hath  such  royal  power 
'Twere  hard  for  him  to  think  how  small  a  thing, 
How  slight  a  sign,  would  make  a  ivealthy  dower 
For  one  like  me,  the  bride  of  that  pat le  king 
Whose  bed  is  mine  at  some  sivift -near  ing  'hour. 
Go  to  my  lord,  and  to  his  memory  bring 
That  happy  birthday  of  my  sorrowing 
When  his  large  glance  made  meaner  gazers  glad, 
Entering  the  bannered  lists :  'twas  then  I  had 
The  wound  that  laid  me  in  the  arms  of  Death. 

Tell  Mm,  0  Love,  I  am  a  lowly  maid, 
No  more  than  any  little  knot  of  thyme 
That  he  with  careless  foot  may  often  tread ; 
Yet  lowest  fragrance  oft  will  mount  sublime 
And  cleave  to  things  most  high  and  hallowed, 
As  doth  the  fragrance  of  my  life's  springtime, 
My  lowly  love,  that  soaring  seeks  to  climb 
Within  his  thought,  and  make  a  gentle  bliss, 
More  blissful  than  if  mine,  in  being  his :. 
So  shall  llive  in  him  and  rest  in  Death. 

The  strain  was  new.     It  seemed  a  pleading  cry, 

And  yet  a  rounded  perfect  melody, 

Making  grief  beauteous  as  the  tear-filled  eyes 

Of  little  child  at  little  miseries. 

Trembling  at  first,  then  swelling  as  it  rose, 

Like  rising  light  that  broad  and  broader  grows, 

It  filled  the  hall,  and  so  possessed  the  air 

That  not  one  breathing  soul  was  present  there, 

Though  dullest,  slowest,  but  was  quivering 

In  music's  grasp,  and  forced  to  hear  her  sing. 

But  most  such  sweet  compulsion  took  the  mood 

Of  Pedro  (tired  of  doing  what  he  would). 

Whether  the  words  which  that  strange  meaning  bore 

Were  but  the  poet's  feigning  or  aught  more, 


HOW   LISA    LOVED   TUB   KING.  231 

Was  bounden  question,  since  their  aim  must  be 
At  some  imagined  or  true  royalty. 
He  culled  Minuccio  and  bade  him  tell 
What  poet  of  the  day  had  writ  so  well; 
For  though  they  came  behind  all  former  rhymes, 
The  verses  were  not  bad  for  these  poor  times. 
"  Mpnsignor,  they  are  only  three  days  old," 
Minuccio  said;  "but  it  must  not  be  told 
How  this  song  grew,  save  to  your  royal  ear.' 
Eager,  the  king  withdrew  where  none  was  near 
And  gave  close  audience  to  Minuccio, 
Who  meetly  told  that  love-tale  meet  to  know. 
The  king  had  features  pliant  to  confess 
The  presence  o±  a  manly  tenderness — 
Son,  father,  brother,  lover,  blent  in  one, 
In  fine  harmonic  exaltation — 
The  spirit  of  religious  chivalry. 
He  listened,  and  Minuccio  could  see 
The  tender,  generous  admiration  spread 
O'er  all  his  face,  and  glorify  his  head 
With  royalty  that  would  have  kept  its  rank 
Though  his  brocaded  robes  to  tatters  shrank. 
He  answered  without  pause,  "  So  sweet  a  maid, 
In  nature's  own  insignia  arrayed, 
Though  she  were  come  of  unmixed  trading  blood 
That  sold  and  bartered  ever  since  the  Flood, 
Would  have  the  self-contained  and  single  worth 
Of  radiant  jewels  born  in  darksome  earth. 
Raona  were  a  shame  to  Sicily, 
Letting  such  love  and  tears  unhonored  be: 
Hasten,  Minuccio,  tell  her  that  the  king 
To-day  will  surely  visit  her  when  vespers  ring." 

Joyful,  Minuccio  bore  the  joyous  word, 
And  told  at  full,  while  none  but  Lisa  heard, 
How  each  thing  had  befallen,  sang  the  song, 
And  like  a  patient  nurse  who  would  prolong 
All  means  of  soothing,  dwelt  upon  each  tone, 
Each  look,  with  which  the  mighty  Aragon 
Marked  the  high  worth  his  royal  heart  assigned 
To  that  dear  place  he  held  in  Lisa's  mind. 
She  listened  till  the  draughts  of  pure  content 
Through  all  her  limbs  like  some  new  being  went — 
Life,  not  recovered,  but  untried  before, 
From  out  the  growing  world's  unmeasured  store 


2  HOW    LISA   LOVED   THE    KlJfG. 

Of  fuller,  better,  more  divinely  mixed. 

'Twas  glad  reverse:  she  had  so  firmly  fixed 

To  die,  already  seemed  to  fall  a  veil 

Shrouding  the  inner  glow  from  light  of  senses  pale. 

Her  parents  wondering  see  her  half  arise — 
Wondering,  rejoicing,  see  her  long  dark  eyes 
Brimful  with  clearness,  not  of  'scaping  tears, 
But  of  some  light  ethereal  that  enspheres 
Their  orbs  with  calm,  some  vision  nowly  learned 
Where  strangest  fires  erewhile  had  blindly  burned. 
She  asked  to  have  her  soft  white  robe  and  band 
And  coral  ornaments,  and  with  her  hand 
She  gave  her  locks'  dark  length  a  backward  fall, 
Then  looked  intently  in  a  mirror  small. 
And  feared  her  face  might  perhaps  displease  the  king; 
"In  truth,"  she  said,  "I  am  a  tiny  thing; 
I  was  too  bold  to  tell  what  could  such  visit  bring." 

Meanwhile  the  king,  revolving  in  his  thought 

That  virgin  passion,  was  more  deeply  wrought 

To  chivalrous  pity;  and  at  vesper  bell 

With  careless  mien  which  hid  his  purpose  well, 

Went  forth  on  horseback,  and  as  if  by  chance 

Passing  Bernardo's  house,  he  paused  to  glance 

At  the  fine  garden  of  this  wealthy  man, 

This  Tuscan  trader  turned  Palermitan; 

But,  presently  dismounting,  chose  to  walk 

Amid  the  trellises,  in  gracious  talk 

With  this  same  trader,  deigning  even  to  ask 

If  he  had  yet  fulfilled  the  father's  task 

Of  marrying  that  daughter  whose  young  charms 

Himself,  betwixt  the  passages  of  arms, 

Noted  admiringly.     "  Monsignor,  no, 

She  is  not  married;  that  were  little  woe, 

Since  she  has  counted  barely  fifteen  years, 

But  all  such  hopes  of  late  have  turned  to  fears; 

She  droops  and  fades;  though  for  a  space  quite  brief — r 

Scarce  three  hours  past — she  finds  some  strange  relief." 

The  king  advised:  "'Twere  dole  to  all  of  us, 
The  world  should  lose  a  maid  so  beauteous; 
Let  me  now  see  her;  since  I  am  her  liege  lord, 
Her  spirits  must  wage  war  with  death  at  my  strong 
word." 


HOW    LISA    LOVED   THE    KING.  233 

In  such  half-serious  playfulness,  he  wends, 

With  Lisa's  father  and  two  chosen  friends, 

Up  to  the  chamber  where  she  pillowed  sits 

Watching  the  open  door,  that  now  admits 

A  presence  as  much  better  than  her  dreams, 

As  happiness  than  any  longing  seems. 

The  king  advanced,  and,  with  a  reverent  kiss 

Upon  her  hand,  said,  "Lady,  what  is  this? 

You,  whose  sweet  youth  should  others'  solace  be, 

Pierce  all  our  hearts,  languishing  piteously. 

We  pray  you,  for  the  love  of  us,  be  cheered. 

Nor  be  too  reckless  of  that  life,  endeared 

To  us  who  know  your  passing  worthiness, 

And  count  your  blooming  life  as  part  of  our  life's 

bliss."   ' 

Those  words,  that  touch  upon  her  hand  from  him 
Whom  her  soul  worshiped,  as  far  seraphim 
Worship  the  distant  glory,  brought  some  shame 
Quivering  upon  her  cheek,  yet  thrilled  her  frame 
With  such  deep  joy  she  seemed  in  paradise, 
In  wondering  gladness,  and  in  dumb  surprise 
That  bliss  could  be  so  blissful:  then  she  spoke — 
Signor,  I  was  too  weak  to  bear  the  yoke, 
The  golden  yoke  of  thoughts  too  great  for  me; 
That  was  the  ground  of  my  infirmity. 
But  now,  I  pray  your  grace  to  have  belief 
That  I  shall  soon  be  well,  nor  any  more  cause  grief. " 

The  king  alone  perceived  the  covert  sense 
Of  all  her  words,  which  made  one  evidence 
With  her  pure  voice  and  candid  loveliness, 
That  he  had  lost  much  honor,  honoring  less 
That  message  of  her  passionate  distress. 
He  stayed  beside  her  for  a  little  while 
With  gentle  looks  and  speech,  until  a  smile 
As  placid  as  a  ray  of  early  morn 
On  opening  flower-cups  o'er  her  lips  was  borne. 
When  he  had  left  her,  and  the  tidings  spread   • 
Through  all  the  town  how  he  had  visited 
The  Tuscan  trader's  daughter,  who  was  sick, 
Men  said,  it  was  a  royal  deed  and  catholic. 
And  Lisa?  she  no  longer  wished  for  death; 
But  as  a  poet,  who  sweet  verses  faith 
Within  his  soul,  and  joys  in  music  there, 
JS^or  seeks  another  heaven,  nor  can  bear 


234  HOW    LISA   LOVED    THE    KING. 

Disturbing  pleasures,  so  was  she  content, 
Breathing  the  life  of  grateful  sentiment. 
She  thought  no  maid  betrothed  could  be  more  blest; 
For  treasure  must  be  valued  by  the  test 
t     Of  highest  excellence  and  rarity, 

And  her  dear  joy  Avas  best  as  best  could  be; 

There  seemed  no  other  crown  to  her  delight 

Now  the  high  loved  one  saw  her  love  aright. 

Thus  her  soul  thriving  on  that  exquisite  mood, 

Spread  like  the  May-time  all  its  beauteous  good 

O'er  the  soft  bloom  of  neck,  and  arms,  and  cheek, 

And  strengthened  the  sweet  body,  once  so  weak, 

Until  she  rose  and  walked,  and,  like  a  bird 

With  sweetly  rippling  throat,  she  made  her  spring  joys 

heard. 

The  king,  when  he  the  happy  change  had  seen, 
Trusted  the  ear  of  Constance,  his  fair  queen, 
With  Lisa's  innocent  secret,  and  conferred 
How  they  should  jointly,  by  their  deed  and  word, 
Honor  this  maiden's  love,  which,  like  the  prayer 
Of  loyal  hermits,  never  thought  to  share 
In  what  it  gave.     The  queen  had  that  chief  grace 
Of  womanhood,  a  heart  that  can  embrace 
All  goodness  in  another  woman's  form; 
And  that  same  day,  ere  the  sun  lay  too  warm 
On  southern  terraces,  a  messenger 
Informed  Bernardo  that  the  royal  pair 
Would  straightway  visit  him  and  celebrate 
Their  gladness  at  his  daughter's  happier  state, 
Which  they  were  fain  to  see.     Soon  came  the  king 
On  horseback,  with  his  barons,  heralding 
The  advent  of  the  queen  in  courtly  state; 
And  all,  descending  at  the  garden,  gate, 
Streamed  with  their  feathers,  velvet,  and  brocade, 
Through  the  pleached  alleys,  till  they,  pausing,  made 
A  lake  of  splendor  'mid  the  aloes  gray — 
When,  meekly  facing  all  their  proud  array, 
The  white-robed  Lisa  with  her  parents  stood, 
As  some  white  dove  before  the  gorgeous  brood 
Of  dapple-breasted  birds  born  by  the  Colchian  flood. 

The  king  and  queen,  by  gracious  looks  and  speech, 
Encourage  her,  and  thus  their  courtiers  teach 
How  this  fair  morning  they  may  courtliest  be 
By  making  Lisa  pass  it  happily. 


HOW    LISA.    LOVED   THE   KING.  235 

And  soon  the  ladies  and  the  barons  all 

Draw  her  by  turns,  as  at  a  festival 

Made  for  her  sake,  to  easy,  gay  discourse, 

And  compliment  with  looks  and  smiles  enforce; 

A  joyous  hum  is  heard  the  gardens  round; 

Soon  there  is  Spanish  dancing  and  the  sound 

Of  minstrel's  song,  and  autumn  fruits  are  plucked; 

Till  mindfully  the  king  and  queen  conduct 

Lisa  apart  to  where  a  trellised  shade 

Made  pleasant  resting.     Then  King  Pedro  said — 

Excellent  muiden,  that  rich  gift  of  love 

Your  heart  hath  made  us,  hath  a  worth  above 

All  royal  treasures,  nor  is  fitly  met 

Save  when  the  grateful  memory  of  deep  debt 

Lies  still  behind  the  outward  honors  done: 

And  as  a  sign  that  no  oblivion 

Shall  overflood  that  faithful  memory, 

We  while  we  live  your  cavalier  will  be, 

Nor  will  we  ever  arm  ourselves  for  fight, 

Whether  for  struggle  dire  or  brief  delight 

Of  warlike  feigning,  but  we  first  will  take 

The  colors  you  ordain,  and  for  your  sake 

Charge  the  more  bravely  where  your  emblem  is; 

Nor  will  we  ever  claim  an  added  bliss 

To  our  sweet  thoughts  of  you  save  one  sole  kiss. 

But  there  still  rests  the  outward  honor  meet 

To  mark  your  worthiness,  and  we  entreat 

That  you  will  turn  your  ear  to  proffered  vows 

Of  one  who  loves  you,  and  woiild  be  your  spouse. 

We  must  not  wrong  yourself  and  Sicily 

By  letting  all  your  blooming  years  pass  by 

Unmated:  you  will  give  the  world  its  due 

From  beauteous  maiden  and  become  a  matron  true." 

Then  Lisa,  wrapt  in  virgin  wonderment 

At  her  ambitious  love's  complete  content, 

Which  left  no  further  good  for  her  to  seek 

Than  love's  obedience,  said  with  accent  meek — 

Monsignor,  I  know  well  that  were  it  known 

To  all  the  world  how  high  my  love  had  flown, 

There  would  be  few  who  would  not  deem  me  mad, 

Or  say  my  mind  the  falsest  image  had 

Of  my  condition  and  your  lofty  place. 

But  heaven  has  seen  that  for  no  moment's  spao» 


236  HOW   LISA   LOVED  THE   KING. 

Have  I  forgotten  you  to  be  the  king, 
Or  me  myself  to  be  a  lowly  thing — 
A  little  lark,  enamored  of  the  sky, 
That  soared  to  sing,  to  break  its  breast,  and  die. 
But,  as  you  better  know  than  I,  the  heajt 
In  choosing  chooseth  not  its  own  desert, 
But  that  great  merit  which  attracteth  it; 
'Tis  law,  I  struggled,  but  I  must  submit, 
And  having  seen  a  worth  all  worth  above, 
I  loved  you,  love  you,  and  shall  always  love. 
But  that  doth  mean,  my  will  is  ever  yours, 
Not  only  when  your  will  my  good  insures, 
But  if  it  wrought  me  what  the  world  calls  harm — 
Fire,  wounds,  would  wear  from  your  dear  will  a  charm. 
That  you  will  be  my  knight  is  full  content, 
And  for  that  kiss  —  I  pray,  first  for  the  queen's  con- 
sent." 

Her  answer,  given  with  such  firm  gentleness, 

Pleased  the  queen  well,  and  made  her  hold  no  less 

Of  Lisa's  merit  than  the  king  had  held. 

And  so,  all  cloudy  threats  of  grief  dispelled, 

There  was  betrothal  made  that  very  morn 

'Twixt  Perdicone,  youthful,  brave,  well-born, 

And  Lisa,  whom  he  loved;  she  loving  well 

The  lot  that  from  obedience  befell. 

The  queen  a  rare  betrothal  ring  on  each 

Bestowed,  and  other  gems,  with  gracious  speech. 

And  that  no  joy  might  lack,  the  king,  who  knew 

The  youth  was  poor,  gave  him  rich  Ceffalii 

And  Cataletta,  large  and  fruitful  lands — 

Adding  much  promise  when  he  joined  their  hands. 

At  last  he  said  to  Lisa,  with  an  air 

Gallant  yet  noble:  "Now  we  claim  our  share 

From  your  sweet  love,  a  share  which  is  not  small: 

For  in  the  sacrament  one  crumb  is  all." 

Then  taking  her  small  face  his  hands  between, 

He  kissed  her  on  the  broAv  with  kiss  serene, 

Fit  seal  to  that  pure  vision  her  young  soul  had  seen. 


Sicilians  witnessed  that  King  Pedro  kept 
His  royal  promise:  Perdicone  stept 
To  many  honors  honorably  won, 
Living  with  Lisa  in  true  union. 


HOW    LISA    LOVED  THE    KING.  23? 

Throughout  his  life  the  king  still  took  delight: 
To  call  himself  fair  Lisa's  faithful  knight: 
And  never  wore  in  field  or  tournament 
A  scarf  or  emblem  save  by  Lisa  sent. 

Such  deeds  made  subjects  loyal  in  that  land: 

They  joyed  that  one  so  worthy  to  command, 

So  chivalrous  and  gentle,  had  become 

The  king  of  Sicily,  und  filled  the  room 

Of  Frenchmen,  who  abused  the  Church's  trust, 

Till,  in  a  righteous  vengeance  on  their  lust, 

Messina  rose,  with  God,  and  with  the  dagger's  thrust. 

L'ENTOI. 

Reader,  this  story  pleased  me  long  ago 

In  the  bright  pages  of  Boccaccio, 

And  ivhere  the  author  of  a  good  we  know, 

Let  us  not  fail  to  pay  the  grateful  thanks  we  owe. 


A  MINOR  PROPHET. 


I  HAVE  a  friend,  a  vegetarian  seer, 

By  name  Elias  Baptist  Butterworth, 

A  harmless,  bland,  disinterested  man, 

Whose  ancestors  in  Cromwell's  day  believed 

The  Second  Advent  certain  in  five  years, 

But  when  King  Charles  the  Second  came  instead, 

Revised  their  date  and  sought  another  world: 

I  mean — not  heaven,  but — America. 

A  fervid  stock,  whose  generous  hope  embraced 

The  fortunes  of  mankind,  not  stopping  short 

At  rise  of  leather,  or  the  fall  of  gold, 

Nor  listening  to  the  voices  of  the  time 

As  housewives  listen  to  a  cackling  hen, 

With  wonder  whether  she  has  laid  her  egg 

On  their  own  nest-egg.     Still  they  did  insist 

Somewhat  too  wearisomely  on  the  joys 

Of  their  Millennium,  when  coats  and  hats 

Would  all  be  of  one  pattern,  books  and  songs 

All  fit  for  Sundays,  and  the  casual  talk 

As  good  as  sermons  preached  extempore. 

And  in  Elias  the  ancestral  zeal 
Breathes  strong  as  ever,  only  modified 
By  Transatlantic  air  and  modern  thought. 
You  could  not  pass  him  in  the  street  and  fail 
To  note  his  shoulders'  long  declivity, 
Beard  to  the  waist,  swan-neck,  and  large  pale  eyes; 
Or,  when  he  lifts  his  hat,  to  mark  his  hair 
Brushed  back  to  show  his  great  capacity — 
A  full  grain's  length  at  the  angle  of  the  brow 
Proving  him  witty,  while  the  shallower  men 
Only  seemed  witty  in  their  repartees. 
Not  that  he's  vain,  but  that  his  doctrine  needs 
The  testimony  of  his  frontal  lobe. 
On  all  points  he  adopts  the  latest  views; 
Takes  for  the  key  of  universal  Mind 
The  "levitation"  of  stout  gentlemen; 
Believes  the  Rappings  are  not  spirits'  work, 
238 


A   MINOR   PROPHET.  239 

But  the  Thought-atmosphere's,  a  steam  of  brains 

In  correlated  force  of  raps,  as  proved 

By  motion,  heat,  and  science  generally; 

The  spectrum,  for  example,  which  has  shown 

The  self-same  metals  in  the  sun  as  here; 

So  the  Thought-atmosphere  is  everywhere. 

High  truths  that  glimmered  under  other  names 

To  ancient  sages,  whence  good  scholarship 

Applied  to  Eleusinian  mysteries — 

The  Vedas — Tripitaka — Vendidad — 

Might  furnish  weaker  proof  for  weaker  minds 

That  Thought  was  rapping  in  the  hoary  past, 

And  might  have  edified  the  Greeks  by  raps 

At  the  greater  Dionysia,  if  their  ears 

Had  not  been  filled  with  Sophoclean  verse. 

And  when  all  Earth  is  vegetarian — 

When,  lacking  butchers,  quadrupeds  die  out, 

And  less  Thought-atmosphere  is  reabsorbed 

By  nerves  of  insects  parasitical, 

Those  higher  truths,  seized  now  by  higher  minds 

But  not  expressed  (the  insects  hindering) 

Will  either  flash  out  into  eloquence, 

Or  better  still,  be  comprehensible 

By  rappings  simply,  without  need  of  roots. 

'Tis  on  this  theme — the  vegetarian  world — 

That  good  Elias  willingly  expands: 

He  loves  to  tell  in  mildly  nasal  tones 

And  vowels  stretched  to  suit  the  widest  views, 

The  future  fortunes  of  our  infant  Earth — 

When  it  will  be  too  full  of  human  kind 

To  have  the  room  for  wilder  animals. 

Saith  he,  Sahara  will  be  populous 

With  families  of  gentlemen  retired 

From  commerce  in  more  Central  Africa, 

Who  order  coolness  as  we  order  coal, 

And  have  a  lobe  anterior  strong  enough 

To  think  away  the  sand-storms.     Science  thus 

Will  leave  no  spot  on  this  terraqueous  globe 

Unfit  to  be  inhabited  by  man, 

The  chief  of  animals:  all  meaner  brutes 

Will  have  been  smoked  or  elbowed  out  of  life. 

No  lions  then  shall  lap  Caffrarian  pools, 

Or  shake  the  Atlas  with  their  midnight  roar: 

Even  the  slow,  slime-loving  crocodile, 


240  A   MINOK   PROPHET. 

The  last  of  animals  to  take  a  hint, 
"Will  then  retire  forever  from  a  scene 
Where  public  feeling  strongly  sets  against  him. 
Fishes  may  lead  carnivorous  lives  obscure, 
But  must  not  dream  of  culinary  rank 
Or  being  dished  in  good  society. 
Imagination  in  that  distant  age, 
Aiming  at  fiction  called  historical, 
Will  vainly  try  to  reconstruct  the  times 
When  it  was  man's  preposterous  delight 
To  sit  astride  live  horses,  which  consumed 
Materials  for  incalculable  cakes; 

When  there  were  milkmaids  who  drew  milk  from  cows 
With  udders  kept  abnormal  for  that  end 
Since  the  rude  mythopoeic  period 
Of  Aryan  dairymen  who  did  not  blush 
To  call  their  milkmaid  and  their  daughter  one — 
Helplessly  gazing  at  the  Milky  Way, 
Nor  dreaming  of  the  astral  cocoa-nuts 
Quite  at  the  service  of  posterity. 
'Tis  to  be  feared,  though,  that  the  duller  boys, 
'  Much  given  to  anachronisms  and  nuts, 
(Elias  has  confessed  boys  will  be  boys) 
May  write  a  jockey  for  a  centaur,  think 
Europa's  suitor  was  an  Irish  bull, 
^Esop  a  journalist  who  wrote  up  Fox, 
And  Bruin  a  chief  swindler  upon  'Change. 
Boys  will  be  boys,  but  dogs  will  all  be  moral, 
With  longer  alimentary  canals 
Suited  to  diet  vegetarian. 
The  uglier  breeds  will  fade  from  memory, 
Or,  being  palaeontological, 
Live  but  as  portraits  in  large  learned  books, 
Distasteful  to  the  feelings  of  an  age 
Nourished  on  purest  beauty.     Earth  will  hold 
No  stupid  brutes,  no  cheerful  queernesses, 
No  nai've  cunning,  grave  absurdity. 
Wart-pigs  with  tender  and  rental  grunts, 
Wombats  much  flattened  as  to  their  contour, 
Perhaps  from  too  much  crushing  in  the  ark, 
But  taking  meekly  that  fatality; 
The  serious  cranes,  unstrung  by  ridicule; 
Long-headed,  short-legged,  solemn-looking  cura 
(Wise,  silent  critics  of  a  flippant  age) ; 
The  silly  straddling  foals,  the  weak-brained  geese 


A  MINOR   PUOPHET.  241 

Hissing  fallaciously  at  sound  of  wheels — 

All  these  rude  products  will  have  disappeared 

Along  with  every  faulty  human  type. 

By  dint  of  diet  vegetarian 

All  will  be  harmony  of  hue  and  line, 

Bodies  and  minds  all  perfect,  limbs  well-turned, 

And  talk  quite  free  from  aught  erroneous. 

Thus  far  Elias  in  his  seer's  mantle: 
But  at  this  climax  in  his  prophecy 
My  sinking  spirits,  fearing  to  be  swamped, 
Urge  me  to  speak.    "  Iligh  prospects,  these,  my  friend, 
Setting  the  weak  carnivorous  brain  astretch; 
We  will  resume  the  thread  another  day/' 
"  To-morrow,"  cries  Ellas,  "at  this  hour?" 
"  No,  not  to-morrow — I  shall  have  a  cold — 
At  least  I  feel  some  soreness — this  endemic — 
Good-bye." 

No  tears  are  sadder  than  the  smile 
With  which  I  quit  Elias.     Bitterly 
I  feel  that  every  change  upon  this  earth 
Is  bought  with  sacrifice.     My  yearnings  fail 
To  reach  that  high  apocalyptic  mount 
Which  shows  in  bird's-eye  view  a  perfect  world, 
Or  enter  warmly  into  other  joys 
Than  those  of  faulty,  struggling  human  kind. 
That  strain  upon  my  soul's  too  feeble  wing 
Ends  in  ignoble  floundering:  1  fall 
Into  short-sighted  pity  for  the  men 
Who  living  in  those  perfect  future  times 
Will  not  know  half  the  dear  imperfect  things 
That  move  my  smiles  and  tears — will  never  know 
The  fine  old  incongruities  that  raise 
My  friendly  laugh;  the  innocent  conceits 
That  like  a  needless  eyeglass  or  black  patch 
Give  those  who  wear  them  harmless  happiness; 
The  twists  and  cracks  in  our  poor  earthenware, 
That  touch  me  to  more  conscious  fellowship 
(I  am  not  myself  the  finest  Parian) 
With  my  coevals.     So  poor  Colin  Clout, 
To  whom  raw  onion  gives  prospective  zest, 
Consoling  hours  of  dampest  wintry  work, 
Could  hardly  fancy  any  regal  joys 
Quite  unimpregnate  with  the  onion's  scent: 
Perhaps  his  highest  hopes  are  not  all  clear 
16 


2  A   MINOR   PROPHET. 

Of  waftings  from  that  energetic  bulb: 
"Pis  well  that  onion  is  not  heresy. 
Speaking  in  parable,  I  am  Colin  Clout. 
A  clinging  flavor  penetrates  my  life — 
My  onion  is  imperfectnesis:  I  cleave 
To  nature's  blunders,  evanescent  types 
Which  sages  banish  from  Utopia. 
"Not  worship  beauty ?"  say  you.     Patience,  friend! 
I  worship  in  the  temple  with  the  rest; 
But  by  my  hearth  I  keep  a  sacred  nook 
For  gnomes  and  dwarfs,  duck-footed  waddling  elves 
Who  stitched  and  hammered  for  the  weary  man 
In  days  of  old.     And  in  that  piety 
I  clothe  ungainly  forms  inherited 
From  toiling  generations,  daily  bent 
At  desk,  or  plough,  or  loom,  or  in  the  mine, 
In  pioneering  labors  for  the  world. 
Nay,  I  am  apt  when  floundering  confused 
From  too  rash  flight,  to  grasp  at  paradox, 
And  pity  future  men  who  will  not  know 
A  keen  experience  with  pity  blent, 
The  pathos  exquisite  of  lovely  minds 
Hid  in  harsh  forms — not  penetrating  them 
Like  fire  divine  within  a  common  bush 
Which  glows  transfigured  by  the  heavenly  guest, 
So  that  men  put  their  shoes  off;  but  encaged 
Like  a  sweet  child  within  some  thick-walled  cell, 
Who  leaps  and  fails  to  hold  the  window-bars, 
But  having  shown  a  little  dimpled  hand 
Is  visited  thenceforth  by  tender  hearts 
Whose  eyes  keep  watch  about  the  prison-walls. 
A  foolish,  nay,  a  wicked  paradox! 
For  purest  pity  is  the  eye  of  love 
Melting  at  sight  of  sorrow;  and  to  grieve 
Because  it  sees  no  sorrow,  shows  a  love 
Warped  from  its  truer  nature,  turned  to  love 
Of  merest  habit,  like  the  miser's  greed. 
But  I  am  Colin  still:  my  prejudice 
Is  for  the  flavor  of  my  daily  food. 
Not  that  I  doubt  the  world  is  growing  still 
As  once  it  grew  from  Chaos  and  from  Night; 
Or  have  a  soul  too  shrunken  for  the  hope 
Which  dawned  in  human  breasts,  a  double  morn, 
With  earliest  watchings  of  the  rising  light 
Chasing  the  darkness;  and  through  many  an  age 


A   MINOR   PROPHET.  243 

Has  raised  the  vision  of  a  future  time 
That  stands  an  angel  with  a  face  all  mild 
Spi-tiring  the  demon.     I  too  rest  in  faith 
That  man's  perfection  is  the  crowning  flower, 
Toward  which  the  urgent  sap  in  life's  great  tree 
Is  pressing, — seen  in  puny  blossoms  now, 
But  in  the  world's  great  morrows  to  expand 
With  broadest  petal  and  with  deepest  glow. 

Yet,  see  the  patched  and  plodding  citizen 

Waiting  upon  the  pavement  with  the  throng 

While  some  victorious  world-hero  makes 

Triu mphal  entry,  and  the  peal  of  shouts 

And  flash  of  faces  'neath  uplifted  hats 

Eun  like  a  storm  of  joy  along  the  streets! 

He  says,  " God  bless  him!"  almost  with  a  sob, 

As  the  great  hero  passes;  he  is  glad 

The  world  holds  mighty  men  and  mighty  deeds; 

The  music  stirs  his  pulses  like  strong  wine, 

The  moving  splendor  touches  him  with  awe — 

'Tis  glory  shed  around  the  common  weal, 

And  he  will  pay  his  tribute  willingly, 

Though  with  the  pennies  earned  by  sordid  toil. 

Perhaps  the  hero's  deeds  have  helped  to  bring 

A  time  when  every  honest  citizen 

Shall  wear  a  coat  unpatched.     And  yet  he  feels 

More  easy  fellowship  with  neighbors  there 

Who  look  on  too;  and  he  will  soon  relapse 

From  noticing  the  banners  and  the  steeds 

To  think  with  pleasure  there  is  just  one  bun 

Left  in  his  pocket,  that  may  serve  to  tempt 

The  wide-eyed  lad,  whose  weight  is  all  too  much 

For  that  young  mother's  arms:  and  then  he  falls 

To  dreamy  picturing  of  sunny  days 

When  he  himself  was  a  small  big-cheeked  lad 

In  some  far  village  where  no  heroes  came, 

And  stood  a  listener  'twixt  his  father's  legs 

In  the  warm  fire-light  while  the  old  folk  talked 

And  shook  their  heads  and  looked  upon  the  floor; 

And  he  was  puzzled,  thinking  life  was  fine — 

The  bread  and  cheese  so  nice  all  through  the  year 

And  Christmas  sure  to  come!     Oh  that  good  time! 

He,  could  he  choose,  would  have  those  days  again 

And  see  the  dear  old-fashioned  things  once  more. 

But  soon  the  wheels  and  drums  have  all  passed  by 


244  A   MINOR   PROPHET. 

And  tramping  feet  are  heard  like  sudden  rain; 

The  quiet  startles  our  good  citizen; 

He  feels  the  child  upon  his  arms,  and  knows 

He  is  with  the  people  making  holiday 

Because  of  hopes  for  better  days  to  come. 

But  hope  to  him  was  like  the  brilliant  west 

Telling  of  sunrise  in  a  world  unknown, 

And  from  that  dazzling  curtain  of  bright  hues 

He  turned  to  the  familiar  face  of  fields 

Lying  all  clear  in  the  calm  morning  land. 

Maybe  'tis  wiser  not  to  fix  a  lens 

Too  scrutinizing  on  the  glorious  times 

When  Barbarossa  shall  arise  and  shake 

His  mountain,  good  King  Arthur  come  again, 

And  all  the  heroes  of  such  giant  soul 

That,  living  once  to  cheer  mankind  with  hope, 

They  had  to  sleep  until  the  time  was  ripe 

For  greater  deeds  to  match  their  greater  thought. 

Yet  no!  the  earth  yields  nothing  more  divine 

Than  high  prophetic  vision — than  the  Seer 

Who  fasting  from  man's  meaner  joy  beholds 

The  paths  of  beauteous  order,  and  constructs 

A  fairer  type  to  shame  our  low  content. 

But  prophecy  is  like  potential  sound 

Which  turned  to  music  seems  a  voice  sublime 

From  out  the  soul  of  light;  but  turns  to  noise 

In  scrannel  pipes,  and  makes  all  ears  averse. 

The  faith  that  life  on  earth  is  being  shaped 

To  glorious  ends,  that  order,  justice,  love 

Mean  man's  completeness,  mean  effect  as  sure 

As  roundness  in  the  dew-drop — that  great  faith 

Is  but  the  rushing  and  expanding  stream 

Of  thought,  of  feeling,  fed  by  all  the  past. 

Our  finest  hope  is  finest  memory, 

As  they  who  love  in  age  think  youth  is  blest 

Because  it  has  a  life  to  fill  with  love. 

Full  souls  are  double  mirrors,  making  still 

An  endless  vista  of  fair  things  before 

Kepeating  things  behind;  so  faith  is  strong 

Only  when  we  are  strong,  shrinks  when  we  shrink. 

It  comes  when  music  stirs  us  and  the  chords 

Moving  on  some  grand  climax  shake  our  souls 

With  influx  new  that  makes  new  energies. 

It  comes  in  swellings  of  the  heart  and  tears 


\     MINOR    PKOPHKT.  245 

That  rise  at  noble  and  at  gentle  deeds — 
At  labors  of  the  master  artist's  hand    . 
Which,  trembling,  touches  to  a  finer  end, 
Trembling  before  an  image  seen  within. 
It  comes  in  moments  of  heroic  love, 
Unjealous  joy  in  joy  not  made  for  us — 
In  conscious  triumph  of  the  good  within 
Making  us  worship  goodness  that  rebukes. 
Even  our  failures  are  a  prophecy, 
Even  our  yearnings  and  our  bitter  tears 
After  that  fair  and  true  we  cannot  grasp; 
As  patriots  who  seem  to  die  in  vain 
Make  liberty  more  sacred  by  their  pangs. 

Presentiment  of  better  things  on  earth 

Sweeps  in  with  every  force  that  stirs  our  souls 

To  admiration,  self-renouncing  love, 

Or  thoughts,  like  light,  that  bind  the  world  in  one; 

Sweeps  like  the  sense  of  vastness,  when  at  night 

We  hear  the  roll  and  dash  of  waves  that  break 

Nearer  and  nearer  with  the  rushing  tide, 

Which  rises  to  the  level  of  the  cliff 

Because  the  wide  Atlantic  rolls  behind 

Throbbing  respondent  to  the  far-off  orbs. 


BKOTHER  AND  SISTER 


I  CANNOT  choose  but  think  upon  the  time 
When  our  two  lives  grew  like  two  buds  that  kiss 
At  lightest  thrill  from  the  bee's  swinging  chime, 
Because  the  one  so  near  the  other  is. 

He  was  the  elder  and  a  little  man 
Of  forty  inches,  bound  to  show  no  dread, 
And  I  the  girl  that  puppy-like  now  ran, 
Now  lagged  behind  my  brother's  larger  tread. 

I  held  him  wise,  and  when  he  talked  to  me 
Of  snakes  and  birds,  and  which  God  loved  the  best, 
I  thought  his  knowledge  marked  the  boundary 
Where  men  grew  blind,  though  angels  knew  the  rest. 

If  he  said  "Hush!"  I  tried  to  hold  my  breath, 
Wherever  he  said  "Come!"  I  stepped  in  faith. 

ii. 

Long  years  have  left  their  writing  on  my  brow, 
But  yet  the  freshness  and  the  dew-fed  beam 
Of  those  young  mornings  are  about  me  now, 
When  we  two  wandered  toward  the  far-off  stream 

With  rod  and  line.     Our  basket  held  a  store 
Baked  for  us  only,  and  I  thought  Avith  joy 
That  I  should  have  my  share,  though  he  had  more, 
Because  he  was  the  elder  and  a  boy. 

The  firmaments  of  daisies  since  to  me 
Have  had  those  mornings  in  their  opening  eyes, 
The  bunched  cowslip's  pale  transparency 
Carries  that  sunshine  of  sweet  memories, 

And  wild-rose  branches  take  their  finest  scent 

From  those  blest  hours  of  infantine  content, 

246 


BBOTHEtt   AND   SISTEK.  24:7 


in. 

Our  mother  bade  us  keep  the  trodden  ways, 
Stroked  down  my  tippet,  set  my  brother's  frill, 
Then  with  the  benediction  of  her  gaze 
Clung  to  us  lessening,  and  pursued  us  still 

Across  the  homestead  to  the  rookery  elms, 
Whose  tall  old  trunks  had  each  a  grassy  mound, 
So  rich  for  us,  we  counted  them  as  realms 
With  varied  products:  here  were  earth-nuts  found, 

And  here  the  lady-fingers  in  deep  shade; 
Here  sloping  toward  the  Moat  the  rushes  grew, 
The  large  to  split  for  pith,  the  small  to  braid; 
While  over  all  the  dark  rooks  cawing  flew, 

And  made  a  happy  strange  solemnity, 

A  deep-toned  chant  from  life  unknown  to  me. 

IV. 

Our  meadow-path  had  memorable  spots: 
One  where  it  bridged  a  tiny  rivulet, 
Deep  hid  by  tangled  blue  Forget-me-nots; 
And  all  along  the  waving  grasses  met 

My  little  palm,  or  nodded  to  my  cheek, 
When  flowers  with  upturned  faces  gazing  drew 
My  wonder  downward,  seeming  all  to  speak 
With  eyes  of  souls  chat  dumbly  heard  and  knew. 

Then    came    the  copse,   where  wild  things    rushed 

unseen, 

And  black-scathed  grass  betrayed  the  past  abode 
Of  mystic  gypsies,  who  still  lurked  between 
Me  and  each  hidden  distance  of  the  road. 

A  gypsy  once  had  startled  me  at  play, 
Blotting  with  her  dark  smile  my  sunny  day. 

v. 

Thus  rambling  we  were  schooled  in  deepest  lore, 
And  learned  the  meanings  that  give  words  a  soul, 
The  fear,  the  love,  the  primal  passionate  store, 
Whose  shaping  impulses  make  manhood  whole. 


248  BROTHER   AND    SISTER. 

Those  hours  were  seed  to  all  my  after  good; 
My  infant  gladness,  through  eye,  ear,  and  touch. 
Took  easily  as  warmth  a  various  food 
To  nourish  the  sweet  skill  of  loving  much. 

For  who  in  age  shall  roam  the  earth  and  find 
Reasons  for  loving  that  will  strike  out  love 
With  sudden  rod  from  the  hard  year-pressed  mind? 
Were  reasons  sown  as  thick  as  stars  above, 

'Tis  love  must  see  them,  as  the  eye  sees  light: 
Day  is  but  Number  to  the  darkened  sight. 

VI. 

Our  brown  canal  was  endless  to  my  thought; 
And  on  its  banks  I  sat  in  dreamy  peace, 
Unknowing  how  the  good  I  loved  was  wrought, 
Untroubled  by  the  fear  that  it  would  cease. 

Slowly  the  barges  floated  into  view 
Rounding  a  grassy  hill  to  me  sublime 
With  some  Unknown  beyond  it,  whither  flew 
The  parting  cuckoo  toward  a  fresh  spring-time. 

The  wide-arched  bridge,  the  scented  elder-flowers, 
The  wondrous  watery  rings  that  died  too  soon, 
The  echoes  of  the  quarry,  the  still  hours 
With  white  robe  sweeping-on  the  shadeless  noon, 

Were  but  my  growing  self,  are  part  of  me, 
My  present  Past,  my  root  of  piety. 

VII. 

Those  long  days  measured  by  my  little  feet 
Had  chronicles  which  yield  me  many  a  text; 
Where  irony  still  finds  an  image  meet 
Of  full-grown  judgments  in  this  world  perplexed. 

One  day  my  brother  left  me  in  high  charge, 
To  mind  the  rod,  while  he  went  seeking  bait, 
And  bade  me,  when  I  saw  a  nearing  barge, 
Snatch  out  the  line,  lest  he  should  come  too  late. 

Proud  of  the  task,  I  watched  with  all  my  might 
For  one  whole  minute,  till  my  eyes  grew  wide, 


BROTHER    AM)    SI.STKR.      f  249 

Till  sky  and  earth  took  on  a  strange  new  1'ght 

And  seemed  a  dream-world  floating  on  some  tide— '- 

t 

A  fair  pavilioned  boat  for  me  alone 

Bearing  me  onward  through  the  vast  unknown. 

VIII. 

But  sudden  came  the  barge's  pitch-black  prow- 
Nearer  and  angrier  came  my  brother's  cry, 
And  all  my  soul  was  quivering  fear,  when  lo! 
Upon  the  imperiled  line,  suspended  high, 

A  silver  perch!     My  guilt  that  won  the  prey, 
Now  turned  to  merit,  had  a  guerdon  rich 
Of  hugs  and  praises,  and  made  merry  play, 
Until  my  triumph  reached  its  highest  pitch 

When  all  at  home  were  told  the  wondrous  feat, 
And  how  the  little  sister  had  fished  well. 
In  secret,  though  my  fortune  tasted  sweet, 
I  wondered  why  this  happiness  befell. 

"  The  little  lass  had  luck,"  the  gardener  said: 
And  so  I  learned,  luck  was  with  glory  wed. 


IX. 

We  had  the  self-same  world  enlarged  for  Ctech 
By  loving  difference  of  girl  and  boy: 
The  fruit  that  hung  on  high  beyond  my  r?ach 
He  plucked  for  me,  and  oft  he  must  employ 

A  measuring  glance  to  guide  my  tiny  shoe 
Where  lay  firm  stepping-stones,  or  call  to  mind 
'  This  thing  I  like  my  sister  may  not  do, 
For  she  is  little,  and  I  must  be  kind." 

Thus  boyish  Will  the  nobler  mastery  learned 
Where  inward  vision  over  impulse  reigns, 
Widening  its  life  with  separate  life  discerned, 
A  Like  unlike,  a  Self  that  self  restrains. 

His  years  with  others  must  the  sweeter  be 
For  those  brief  days  he  spent  in  loving  mo. 


250  *       BROTHER   AND   SISTER. 


t  X. 

His  sorrGW  was  my  sorrow,  and  his  joy 

Sent  little  leaps  and  laughs  through  all  my  frame; 

My  doll  seemed  lifeless  and  no  girlish  toy 

Had  any  reason  when  my  brother  came. 

I  knelt  with  him  at  marbles,  marked  his  fling 
Cut  the  ringed  stem  and  make  the  apple  drop, 
Or  watched  him  winding  close  the  spiral  string 
That  looped  the  orbits  of  the  humming  top. 

Grasped  by  such  fellowship  my  vagrant  thought 
Ceased  with  dream-fruit  dream-wishes  to  fulfill; 
My  airy-picturing  fantasy  was  taught 
Subjection  to  the  harder,  truer  skill 

That  seeks  with  deeds  to  grave  a  thought-tracked 

line, 
And  by  "What  is,"  "  What  will  be"  to  define. 

XI. 

School  parted  us;  we  never  found  again 
That  childish  world  where  our  two  spirits  mingled 
Like  scents  from,  varying  roses  that  remain 
One  sweetness,  nor  can  evermore  be  singled. 

Yet  the  twin  habit  of  that  early  time 
Lingered  for  long  about  the  heart  and  tongue: 
We  had  been  natives  of  one  happy  clime, 
And  its  dear  accent  to  our  utterance  clung. 

Till  the  dire  years  whose  awful  name  is  Change 
Had  grasped  our  souls  still  yearning  in  divorce, 
And  pitiless  shaped  them  in  two  forms  that  range 
Two  elements  which  sever  their  life's  course. 

But  were  another  childhood-world  my  share, 
I  would  be  born  a  little  sister  there. 


STKADIVARITJS. 


YotiTl  soul  was  lifted  by  the  wings  to-day 

Hearing  the  master  of  the  violin : 

You  praised  him,  praised  the  great  Sebastian  too 

Who  made  that  fine  Chaconne;  but  did  you  think 

Of  old  Antonio  Stradivari? — him 

Who  a  good  century  and  half  ago 

Put  his  true  work  in  that  brown  instrument 

And  by  the  nice  adjustment  of  its  frame 

Gave  it  responsive  life,  continuous 

With  the  master's  finger-tips  and  perfected 

Like  them  by  delicate  rectitude  of  use. 

Not  Bach  alone,  helped  by  fine  precedent 

Of  genius  gone  before,  nor  Joachim 

Who  holds  the  strain  afresh  incorporate 

By  inward  hearing  and  notation  strict 

Of  nerve  and  muscle,  made  our  joy  to-day: 

Another  soul  was  living  in  the  air 

And  swaying  it  to  true  deliverance 

Of  high  invention  and  responsive  skill:  — 

That  plain  white-aproned  man  who  stood  at  work 

Patient  and  accurate  full  fourscore  years. 

Cherished  his  sight  and  touch  by  temperance, 

And  since  keen  sense  is  love  of  perfectness 

Made  perfect  violins,  the  needed  paths 

For  inspiration  and  high  mastery. 

No  simpler  man  than  he:  he  never  cried, 
"Why  was  I  born  to  this  monotonous  task 
Of  making  violins?"  or  flung  them  down 
To  suit  with  hurling  act  a  well-hurled  curse 
At  labor  on  such  perishable  stuff. 
Hence  neighbors  in  Cremona  held  him  dull, 
Called  him  a  slave,  a  mill-horse,  a  machine, 
Begged  him  to  tell  his  motives  or  to  lend 
A  few  gold  pieces  to  a  loftier  mind. 
Yet  he  had  pithy  words  full  fed  by  fact; 
For  Fact,  well-trusted,  reasons  and  persuades, 
Is  gnomic,  cutting,  or  ironical, 
Draws  tears,  or  is  a  tocsin  to  arouse  — 
251 


STKAD1VAR1US. 

Ciiii-  hold  all  figures  of  the  orator 

In  one  plain  sentence;  has  her  pauses  too  — 

Eloquent  silence  at  the  chasm  abrupt 

Where  knowledge  ceases.     Thus  Antonio 

Made  answers  as  Fact  willed,  and  made  them  strong. 

Naldo,  a  painter  of  eclectic  school, 
Taking  his  dicers,  candlelight  and  grins 
From  Caravaggio,  and  in  holier  groups 
Combining  Flemish  flesh  with  martyrdom  — 
Knowing  all  tricks  of  style  at  thirty-one, 
And  weary  of  them,  while  Antonio 
At  sixty-nine  wrought  placidly  his  best 
Making  the  violin  you  heard  to-day  — 
Naldo  would  tease  him  oft  to  tell  his  aims. 
"Perhaps  thou  hast  some  pleasant  vice  to  feed  — 
The  love  of  louis  d'ors  in  heaps  of  four, 
Each  violin  a  heap  —  I've  nought  to  blame; 
My  vices  waste  such  heaps.     But  then,  why  work 
With  painful  nicety?    Since  fame  once  earned 
By  luck  or  merit  —  of tenest  by  luck  — 
(Else  why  do  I  put  Bonifazio's  name 
To  work  that  'pinxit  Naldo'  would  not  sell?) 
Is  welcome  index  to  the  wealthy  mob 
Where  they  should  pay  their  gold,  and  where  they  pay 
There  they  find  merit  —  take  your  tow  for  flax, 
And  hold  the  flax  uiilabeled  with  your  name, 
Too  6oarse  for  sufferance." 

Antonio  then: 
'•'  I  like  the  gold  —  well,  yes  —  but  not  for  meals. 

And  as  my  stomach,  so  my  eye  and  hand, 
And  inward  sense  that  works  along  with  both, 
Have  hunger  that  can  never  feed  on  coin. 
Who  draws  a  line  and  satisfies  his  soul, 
Making  it  crooked  where  it  should  be  straight? 
An  idiot  with  an  oyster-shell  may  draw 
His  lines  along  the  sand,  all  wavering, 
Fixing  no  point  or  pathway  to  a  point; 
An  idiot  one  remove  may  choose  his  line, 
Straggle  and  be  content;  but  God  be  praised; 
Antonio  Stradivari  has  an  eye 
That  winces  at  false  work  and  loves  the  true, 
With  hand  and  arm  that  play  upon  the  tool 
As  willingly  as  any  singing  bird 


STRADIVARIUS.  253 

Sets  him  to  sing  his  morning  roundelay, 
Because  lie  likes  to  sing  and  likes  the  song." 

Then  Naldo:  "Tis  a  pretty  kind  of  fame 
At  best,  that  comes  of  making  violins; 
And  saves  no  masses,  either.     Thou  wilt  go 
To  purgatory  none  the  less/' 

But  he: 

"'Twere  purgatory  here  to  make  them  ill; 
And  for  my  fame — when  any  master  holds 
'Twixt  chin  and  hand  a  violin  of  mine, 
He  will  be  glad  that  Stradivari  lived, 
Made  violins,  and  made  them  of  the  best. 
The  masters  only  know  whose  work  is  good; 
They  will  choose  mine,  and  while  God  gives  them  skill 
I  give  them  instruments  to  play  upon, 
God  choosing  me  to  help  Him/' 

"  What!  were  God 
At  fault  for  violins,  thou  absent?" 

"Yes; 
He  were  at  fault  for  Stradivari's  work." 

"  Why,  many  hold  Giuseppe's  violins 
As  good  as  thine." 

"  May  be;  they  are  different. 
His  quality  declines;  he  spoils  his  hand 
With  over-drinking.     But  were  his  the  best, 
He  could  not  work  for  two.     My  work  is  mine, 
And,  heresy  or  not,  if  my  hand  slacked 
I  should  rob  God — since  He  is  fullest  good — 
Leaving  a  blank  instead  of  violins. 
I  say,  not  God  Himself  can  make  man's  best 
Without  best  men  to  help  Him.     I  am  one  best 
Here  in  Cremona,  using  sunlight  well 
To  fashion  finest  maple  till  it  serves 
More  cunningly  than  throats,  for  harmony. 
'Tis  rare  delight;  I  would  not  change  my  skill 
To  be  the  Emperor  with  bungling  hands, 
And  lose  my  work,  which  comes  as  natural 
As  self  at  waking." 

"  Thou  art  little  more 
Than  a  deft  potter's  wheel,  Antonio; 
Turning  out  work  by  mere  necessity 
And  lack  of  varied  function.     Higher  arts 
Subsist  oil  freedom — eccentricity — 


254  3TRADIYARIUS. 

Uncounted  inspirations — influence 

That  comes  with  drinking,  gambling,  talk  turned  wild, 

Then  moody  misery  and  lack  of  food — 

With  every  dithyrambic  fine  excess; 

These  make  at  last  a  storm  which  flashes  out 

In  lightning  revelations.     Steady  work 

Turns  genius  to  a  loom;  the  soul  must  lie 

Like  grapes  beneath  the  sun  till  ripeness  comes 

And  mellow  vintage.     I  could  paint  you  now 

The  finest  Crucifixion;  yesternight 

Eeturning  home  I  saw  it  on  a  sky. 

Blue-black,  thick-starred.     I  want  two  louis  d'ors 

To  buy  the  canvas  and  the  costly  blues — 

Trust  me  a  fortnight." 

"  Where  are  those  last  two 
I  lent  thee  for  thy  Judith? — her  thou  saw'st 
In  saffron  gown,  with  Holofernes'  head 
And  beauty  all  complete?" 

"  She  is  but  sketched; 
I  lack  the  proper  model — and  the  mood. 
A  great  idea  is  an  eagle's  egg, 
Craves  time  for  hatching;  while  the  eagle  sits 
Feed  her." 

"  If  thou  wilt  call  thy  pictures  eggs 
I  call  the  hatching,  Work.     'Tis  God  gives  skill, 
But  not  without  men's  hands;  He  could  not  make 
Antonio  Stradivari's  violins 
Without  Antonio.     Get  thee  to  thy  easel." 


A  COLLEGE  BREAKFAST- PAKTY. 


Hamlet,  not  the  hesitating  Dane, 
But  one  named  after  him,  who  lately  strove 
For  honors  at  our  English  Wittenberg, — 
Blonde,  metaphysical,  and  sensuous, 
Questioning  all  things  and  yet  half  convinced 
Credulity  were  better;  held  inert 
Twixt  fascinations  of  all  opposites, 
And  half  suspecting  that  the  mightiest  soul 
(Perhaps  his  own  ?)  was  union  of  extremes, 
Having  no  choice  but  choice  of  everything: 
As,  drinking  deep  to-day  for  love  of  wine, 
To-morrow  half  a  Brahmin,  scorning  life 
As  mere  illusion,  yearning  for  that  True 
Which  has  no  qualities;  another  day 
Finding  the  fount  of  grace  in  sacraments, 
And  purest  reflex  of  the  light  divine 
In  gem-bossed  pyx  and  broidered  chasuble, 
Resolved  to  wear  no  stockings  and  to  fast 
With  arms  extended,  waiting  ecstasy; 
But  getting  cramps  instead,  and  needing  change, 
A  would-be  pagan  next: — 

Young  Hamlet  sat 

A  guest  with  five  of  somewhat  riper  age 
At  breakfast  with  Horatio,  a  friend 
With  few  opinions,  but  of  faithful  heart, 
Quick  to  detect  the  fibrous  spreading  roots 
Of  character  that  feed  men's  theories, 
Yet  cloaking  weaknesses  with  charity 
And  ready  in  all  service  save  rebuke. 

With  ebb  of  breakfast  and  the  cider-cup 
Came  high  debate:  the  others  seated  there 
Were  Osric,  spinner  of  fine  sentences, 
A  delicate  insect  creeping  over  life 
Feeding  on  molecules  of  floral  breath, 
And  weaving  gossamer  to  trap  the  sun; 
Laertes  ardent,  rash,  and  radical; 
Discursive  Rosencranz,  grave  Guildenstern, 
And  lie  for  whom  the  social  meal  was  made — 
255 


256  A   COLLEGE  BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

The  polished  priest,  a  tolerant  listener, 

Disposed, to  give  a  hearing  to  the  lost, 

And  breakfast  with  them  ere  they  went  below. 

Prom  alpine  metaphysic  glaciers  first 

The  talk  sprang  copious;  the  themes  were  old, 

But  so  is  human  breath,  so  infant  eyes, 

The  daily  nurslings  of  creative  light. 

Small  words  held  mighty  meanings:  Matter,  Force, 

Self,  Not-self,  Being,  Seeming,  Space  and  Time — 

Plebeian  toilers  on  the  dusty  road 

Of  daily  traffic,  turned  to  Genii 

And  cloudy  giants  darkening  sun  and  moon. 

Creation  was  reversed  in  human  talk: 

None  said,  "  Let  Darkness  be,"  but  Darkness  was; 

And  in  it  weltered  with  Teutonic  ease, 

An  argumentative  Leviathan, 

Blowing  cascades  from  out  his  element, 

The  thunderous  Eosencranz,  till 

"Truce,  I  beg!" 

Said  Osric,  with  nice  accent.     "  I  abhor 
That  battling  of  the  ghosts,  that  strife  of  terms 
For  utmost  lack  of  color,  form,  and  breath, 
That  tasteless  squabbling  called  Philosophy: 
As  if  a  blue-winged  butterfly  afloat 
For  just  three  days  above  the  Italian  fields, 
Instead  of  sipping  at  the  heart  of  flowers, 
Poising  in  sunshine,  fluttering  toward  its  bride, 
Should  fast  and  speculate,  considering 
What  were  if  it  were  not?  or  what  now  is 
Instead  of  that  which  seems  to  be  itself? 
Its  deepest  wisdom  surely  were  to  be 
A  sipping,  marrying,  blue-winged  butterfly; 
Since  utmost  speculation  on  itself 
Were  but  a  three  days'  living  of  worse  sort — 
A  bruising  struggle  all  within  the  bounds 
Of  butterfly  existence." 

"  I  protest/' 

Burst  in  Laertes,  "against  arguments 
That  start  with  calling  me  a  butterfly, 
A  bubble,  spark,  or  other  metaphor 
Which  carries  your  conclusions  as  a  phrase 
In  quibbling  law  will  carry  property. 
Put  a  thin  sucker  for  my  human  lips 
Fed  at  a  mother's  breast,  who  now  needs  food 


A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY.  257 

That  I  will  earn  for  her;  put  bubbles  blown 

From  frothy  thinking,  for  the  joy,  the  love, 

The  wants,  the  pity,  and  the  fellowship 

(The  ocean  deeps  I  might  say,  were  I  bent 

On  bandying  metaphors)  that  make  a  man — 

Why,  rhetoric  brings  within  your  easy  reach 

Conclusions  worthy  of — a  butterfly. 

The  universe,  I  hold,  is  no  charade, 

No  acted  pun  unriddled  by  a  word, 

Nor  pain  a  decimal  diminishing 

With  hocus-pocus  of  a  dot  or  nought. 

For  those  who  know  it,  pain  is  solely  pain: 

Not  any  letters  of  the  alphabet 

Wrought  syllogistically  pattern-wise, 

Nor  any  cluster  of  fine  images, 

Nor  any  missing  of  their  figured  dance 

By  blundering  molecules.     Analysis 

May  show  you  the  right  physic  for  the  ill, 

Teaching  the  molecules  to  find  their  dance, 

But  spare  me  your  analogies,  that  hold 

Such  insight  as  the  figure  of  a  crow 

And  bar  of  music  put  to  signify 

A  crowbar." 

Said  the  Priest,  "There  I  agree — 
Would  add  that  sacramental  grace  is  grace 
Which  to  be  known  must  first  be  felt,  with  all 
The  strengthening  influxes  that  come  by  prayer. 
I  note  this  passingly — would  not  delay 
The  conversation's  tenor,  save  to  hint 
That  taking  stand  with  Rosencranz  one  sees 
Final  equivalence  of  all  we  name 
Our  Good  and  111 — their  difference  meanwhile 
Being  inborn  prejudice  that  plumps  you  down 
An  Ego,  brings  a  weight  into  your  scale 
Forcing  a  standard.     That  resistless  weight 
Obstinate,  irremovable  by  thought, 
Persisting  through  disproof,  an  ache,  a  need 
That  spaceless  stays  where  sharp  analysis 
Has  shown  a  plenum  filled  without  it— what 
If  this,  to  use  your  phrase,  were  just  that  Being 
Not  looking  solely,  grasping  from  the  dark, 
Weighing  the  difference  you  call  Ego?    This 
Gives  you  persistence,  regulates  the  flux 
With  strict  relation  rooted  in  the  All. 
Who  is  he  of  vour  late  philosophers 
17 


258  A   COLLEGE   BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

Takes  the  true  name  of  Being  to  be  Will? 
I — nay,  the  Church  objects  nought,  is  content: 
Reason  has  reached  its  utmost  negative, 
Physic  and  metaphysic  meet  in  the  inane 
And  backward  shrink  to  intense  prejudice, 
Making  their  absolute  and  homogene 
A  loaded  relative,  a  choice  to  be 
Whatever  is — supposed,  a  What  is  not. 
The  Church  demands  no  more,  has  standing  room 
And  basis  for  her  doctrine:  this  (no  more) — 
That  the  strong  bias  which  we  name  the  Soul, 
Though  fed  and  clad  by  dissoluble  waves 
Has  antecedent  quality,  and  rules 
By  veto  or  consent  the  strife  of  thought, 
Making  arbitrament  that  we  call  faith." 
Here  was  brief  silence,  till  young  Hamlet  spoke. 
"  I  crave  direction,  Father,  how  to  know 
The  sign  of  that  imperative  whose  right 
To  sway  my  act  in  face  of  thronging  doubts 
Were  an  oracular  gem  in  price  beyond 
Urim  and  Thummim  lost  to  Israel. 
That  bias  of  the  soul,  that  conquering  die 
Loaded  with  golden  emphasis  of  Will — 
How  find  it  where  resolve,  once  made,  becomes 
The  rash  exclusion  of  an  opposite 
Which  draws  the  stronger  as  I  turn  aloof." 

"  I  think  I  hear  a  bias  in  your  words," 
The  Priest  said  mildly, — "that  strong  natural  bent 
Which  we  call  hunger.     What  more  positive  4 
Than  appetite? — of  spirit  or  of  flesh, 
I  care  not — *  sense  of  need '  were  truer  phrase. 
You  hunger  for  authoritative  right, 
And  yet  discern  no  difference  of  tones, 
No  weight  of  rod  that  marks  imperial  rule? 
Laertes  granting,  I  will  put  your  case 
In  analogic  form:  the  doctors  hold 
Hunger  which  gives  no  relish — save  caprice 
That  tasting  venison  fancies  mellow  pears — 
A  symptom  of  disorder,  and  prescribe 
Strict  discipline.     Were  I  physician  here 
I  would  prescribe  that  exercise  of  soul 
Which  lies  in  full  obedience:  you  ask, 
Obedience  to  what?    The  answer  lies 
Within  the  word  itself;  for  how  obey 


A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY.  259 

What  has  no  rule,  asserts  no  absolute  claim? 

Take  inclination,  taste — why,  that  is  you, 

No  rule  above  you.     Science,  reasoning 

On  nature's  order — they  exist  and  move 

Solely  by  disputation,  hold  no  pledge 

Of  final  consequence,  but  push  the  swing 

Where  Epicurus  and  the  Stoic  sit 

In  endless  see-saw.     One  authority, 

And  only  one,  says  simply  this,  Obey: 

Place  yourself  in  that  current  (test  it  so!) 

Of  spiritual  order  where  at  least 

Lies  promise  of  a  high  communion, 

A  Head  informing  members,  Life  that  breathes 

With  gift  of  forces  over  and  above 

The  plus  of  arithmetic  interchange. 

'  The  Church  too  has  a  body/  you  object, 

'Can  be  dissected,  put  beneath  the  lens 
And  shown  the  merest  continuity 
Of  all  existence  else  beneath  the  sun.' 
I  grant  you;  but  the  lens  will  not  disprove 
A  presence  which  eludes  it.     Take  your  wit, 
Your  highest  passion,  widest-reaching  thought: 
Show  their  conditions  if  you  will  or  can, 
But  though  you  saw  the  final  atom-dance 
Making  each  molecule  that  stands  for  sign 
Of  love  being  present,  where  is  stil?  your  love? 
How  measure  that,  how  certify  its  weight? 
And  so  I  say,  the  body  of  the  Church 
Carries  a  Presence,  promises  and  gifts 
Never  disproved — whose  argument  is  found 
In  lasting  failure  of  the  search  elsewhere 
For  what  it  holds  to  satisfy  man's  need. 
But  I  grow  lengthy:  my  excuse  must  be 
Your   question,    Hamlet,   which    has    probed    right 

through 

To  the  pith  of  our  belief.     And  I  have  robbed 
Myself  of  pleasure  as  a  listener. 
'Tis  noon,  I  see;  and  my  appointment  stands 
For  half-past  twelve  with  Voltimand.     Good-bye." 

Brief  parting,  brief  regret — sincere,  but  quenched 
In  fumes  of  best  Havana,  which  consoles 
For  lack  of  other  certitude.     Then  said, 
Mildly  sarcastic,  quiet  Gruildenstern: 
"  I  marvel  how  the  Father  gave  new  charm 


260  A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

To  weak  conclusions:  I  was  half  convinced 
The  poorest  reasoner  made  the  finest  man, 
And  held  his  logic  lovelier  for  its  limp." 

"  I  fain  would  hear,"  said  Hamlet,  "  how  you  find 
A  stronger  footing  than  the  Father  gave. 
How  base  your  self-resistance  save  on  faith 
In  some  invisible  Order,  higher  Eight 
Than  changing  impulse.     What  does  Reason  bid? 
To  take  a  fullest  rationality 
What  offers  best  solution:  so  the  Church. 
Science,  detecting  hydrogen  aflame 
Outside  our  firmament,  leaves  mystery 
Whole  and  untouched  beyond;  nay,  in  our  blood 
And  in  the  potent  atoms  of  each  germ 
The  Secret  lives — envelops,  penetrates 
Whatever  sense  perceives  or  thought  divines. 
Science,  whose  soul  is  explanation,  halts 
With  hostile  front  at  mystery.     The  Church 
Takes  mystery  as  her  empire,  brings  its  wealth 
Of  possibility  to  fill  the  void 
'Twixt  contradictions — warrants  so  a  faith 
Defying  sense  and  all  its  ruthless  train 
Of  arrogant  'Therefores.'     Science  with  her  lens 
Dissolves  the  Forms  that  made  the  other  half 
Of  all  our  love,  which  thenceforth  widowed  lives 
To  gaze  with  maniac  stare  at  what  is  not. 
The  Church  explains  not,  governs — feeds  resolve 
By  vision  fraught  with  heart-experience 
And  human  yearning." 

"  Ay,"  said  Guildenstern, 
With  friendly  nod,  "the  Father,  I  can  see, 
Has  caught  you  up  in  his  air-chariot. 
His  thought  takes  rainbow-bridges,  out  of  reach 
By  solid  obstacles,  evaporates 
The  coarse  and  common  into  subtilties, 
Insists  that  what  is  real  in  the  Church 
Is  something  out  of  evidence,  and  begs 
(Just  in  parenthesis)  you'll  never  mind 
What  stares  you  in  the  face  and  bruises  you. 
Why,  by  his  method  I  could  justify 
Each  superstition  and  each  tyranny 
That  ever  rode  upon  the  back  of  man, 
Pretending  fitness  for  his  sole  defense 


A    COLLEGE    HKEAKKAST-rAKTY.  261 

Against  life's  evil.     How  can  aught  subsist 
That  holds  no  theory  of  gain  or  good? 
Despots  with  terror  in  their  red  right  hand 
Must  argue  good  to  helpers  and  themselves, 
Must  let  submission  hold  a  core  of  gain 
To  make  their  slaves  choose  life.     Their  theory, 
Abstracting  inconvenience  of  racks, 
Whip-lashes,  dragonnades  and  all  things  coarse 
Inherent  in  the  fact  or  concrete  mass, 
Presents  the  pure  idea — utmost  good 
Secured  by  Order  only  to  be  found 
In  strict  subordination,  hierarchy 
Of  forces  where,  by  nature's  law,  the  strong 
Has  rightful  empire,  rule  of  weaker  proved 
Mere  dissolution.     What  can  you  object? 
The  Inquisition — if  you  turn  away 
From  narrow  notice  how  the  scent  of  gold 
Has  guided  sense  of  damning  heresy — 
The  Inquisition  is  sublime,  is  love 
Hindering  the  spread  of  poison  in  men's  souls: 
The  flames  are  nothing:  only  smaller  pain 
Te  hinder  greater,  or  the  pain  of  one 
To  save  the  many,  such  as  throbs  at  heart 
Of  every  system  born  into  the  world. 
So  of  the  Church  as  high  communion 
Of  Head  with  members,  fount  of  spirit  force 
Beyond  the  calculus,  and  carrying  proof 
In  her  sole  power  to  satisfy  man's  need: 
That  seems  ideal  truth  as  clear  as  lines 
That,  necessary  though  invisible,  trace 
The  balance  of  the  planets  and  the  sun — 
Until  I  find  a  hitch  in  that  last  claim. 
'  To  satisfy  man's  need.'    Sir,  that  depends: 
We  settle  first  the  measure  of  man's  need 
Before  we  grant  capacity  to  fill. 
John,  Jarnes,  or  Thomas,  you  may  satisfy: 
But  since  you  choose  ideals  I  demand 
Your  Church  shall  satisfy  ideal  man, 
His  utmost  reason  and  his  utmost  love. 
And  say  these  rest  a-h lingered — find  no  scheme 
Content  them  both,  but  hold  the  world  accursed, 
A  Calvary  where  Reason  mocks  at  Love, 
And  Love  forsaken  sends  out  orphan  cries 
Hopeless  of  answer;  still  the  soul  remains 
Larger,  diviner  than  your  half-way  Church, 


A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

Which  racks  your  reason  into  false  consent, 
And  soothes  your  Love  with  sops  of  selfishness." 

"There  I  am  with  you/'  cried  Laertes.     "What 
To  me  are  any  dictates,  though  they  came 
With  thunders  from  the  Mount,  if  still  within 
I  see  a  higher  Eight,  a  higher  Good 
Compelling  love  and  worship?    Though  the  earth 
Held  force  electric  to  discern  and  kill 
Each  thinking  rebel — what  is  martyrdom 
But  death-defying  utterance  of  belief, 
Which  being  mine  remains  my  truth  supreme 
Though  solitary  as  the  throb  of  pain 
Lying  outside  the  pulses  of  the  world? 
Obedience  is  good:  ay,  but  to  what? 
And  for  what  ends?    For  say  that  I  rebel 
Against  your  rule  as  devilish,  or  as  rule 
Of  thunder-guiding  powers  that  deny 
Man's  highest  benefit:  rebellion  then 
Were  strict  obedience  to  another  rule 
Which  bids  me  flout  your  thunder." 

"Lo  you  now!" 

Said  Osric,  delicately,  "  how  you  come, 
Laertes  mine,  with  all  your  warring  zeal 
As  Python-slayer  of  the  present  age — 
Cleansing  all  social  swamps  by  darting  rays 
Of  dubious  doctrine,  hot  with  energy 
Of  private  judgment  and  disgust  for  doubt — 
To  state  my  thesis,  which  you  most  abhor 
When  sung  in  Daphnis-notes  beneath  the  pines 
To  gentle  rush  of  waters.     Your  belief — 
In  essence,  what  is  it  but  simple  Taste? 
I  urge  with  you  exemption  from  all  claims 
That  come  from  other  than  my  proper  will, 
An  Ultimate  within  to  balance  yours, 
A  solid  meeting  you,  excluding  you, 
Till  you  show  fuller  force  by  entering 
My  spiritual  space  and  crushing  Me 
To  a  subordinate  complement  of  You: 
Such  ultimate  must  stand  alike  for  all. 
Preach  your  crusade,  then:  all  will  join  who  like 
The  hurly-burly  of  aggressive  creeds; 
Still  your  unpleasant  Ought,  your  itch  to  choose 
What  grates  upon  the  sense,  is  simply  Taste, 


A  COLLEGE    BBEAKFAST-PARTY.  263 

Differs,  I  think,  from  mine  (permit  the  word, 
Discussion  forces  it)  in  being  bad." 

The  tone  was  too  polite  to  breed  offense, 
Showing  a  tolerance  of  what  was  "  bad" 
Becoming  courtiers.     Louder  Rosencranz 
Took  up  the  ball  with  rougher  movement,  wont 
To  show  contempt  for  doting  reasoners 
Who  hugged  some  reasons  with  a  preference, 
As  warm  Laertes  did:  he  gave  five  puffs 
Intolerantly  skeptical,  then  said, 
:  Your  human  good,  which  you  would  make  supreme, 
How  do  you  know  it?    Has  it  shown  its  face 
In  adamantine  type,  with  features  clear, 
As  this  republic,  or  that  monarchy? 
As  federal  grouping  or  municipal? 
Equality,  or  finely  shaded  lines 
Of  social  difference?  ecstatic  whirl 
And  draught  intense  of  passionate  joy  and  pain, 
Or  sober  self-control  that  starves  its  youth 
And  lives  to  wonder  what  the  world  calls  joy? 
Is  it  in  sympathy  that  shares  men's  pangs, 
Or  in  cool  brains  that  can  explain  them  well? 
Is  it  in  labor  or  in  laziness? 
In  training  for  the  tug  of  rivalry 
To  be  admired,  or  in  the  admiring  soul? 
In  risk  or  certitude?    In  battling  rage 
And  hardy  challenges  of  Protean  luck, 
Or  in  a  sleek  and  rural  apathy 
Full  fed  with  sameness?    Pray  define  your  Good 
Beyond  rejection  by  majority; 
Next,  how  it  may  subsist  without  tne  111 
Which  seems  its  only  outline.     Show  a  world 
Of  pleasure  not  resisted;  or  a  world 
Of  pressure  equalized,  yet  various 
In  action  formative;  for  that  will  serve 
As  illustration  of  your  human  good — 
Which  at  its  perfecting  (your  goal  of  hope) 
Will  not  be  straight  extinct,  or  fall  to  sleep 
In  the  deej)  bosom  of  the  Unchangeable. 
What  will  you  work  for,  then,  and  call  it  good 
With  full  ami  certain  vision — good  for  aught 
Save  partial  ends  which  happen  to  be  yours? 
How  will  you  get  your  stringency  to  bind 
Thought  or  desire  in  demonstrated  tracks 


264  A    COLLEGE   BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

Which  are  but  waves  within  a  balanced  whole? 
Is  '  relative '  the  magic  word  that  turns 
Your  flux  mercurial  of  good  to  gold?  • 
Why,  that  analysis  at  which  you  rage 
As  anti-social  force  that  sweeps  you  down 
The  world  in  one  cascade  of  molecules, 
Is  brother  '  relative ' — and  grins  at  you 
Like  any  convict  whom  you  thought  to  send 
Outside  society,  till  this  enlarged 
And  meant  New  England  and  Australia  too. 
The  Absolute  is  your  shadow,  and  the  space 
Which  you  say  might  be  real,  were  you  milled 
To  curves  pellicular,  the  thinnest  thin, 
Equation  of  no  thickness,  is  still  you." 

"  Abstracting  all  that  makes  him  clubbable/* 
Horatio  interposed.     But  Rosencranz, 
Deaf  as  the  angry  turkey-cock  whose  ears 
Are  plugged  by  swollen  tissue  when  he  scolds 
At  men's  pretensions:  "Pooh,  your  'Relative* 
Shuts  you  in,  hopeless,  with  your  progeny 
As  in  a  Hunger-tower;  your  social  good, 
Like  other  deities  by  turn  supreme, 
Is  transient  reflex  of  a  prejudice, 
Anthology  of  causes  and  effects 
To  suit  the  mood  of  fanatics  who  lead 
The  mood  of  tribes  or  nations.     I  admit 
If  you  could  show  a  sword,  nay,  chance  of  sword 
Hanging  conspicuous  to  their  inward  eyes 
With  edge  so  constant  threatening  as  to  sway 
All  greed  and  lust  by  terror;  and  a  law 
Clear-writ  and  proven  as  the  law  supreme 
Which  that  dread  sword  enforces — then  your  Right, 
Duty,  or  social  Good,  were  it  once  brought 
To  common  measure  with  the  potent  law, 
Would  dip  the  scale,  would  put  unchanging  marks 
Of  wisdom  or  of  folly  on  each  deed, 
And  warrant  exhortation.     Until  then, 
Where  is  your  standard  or  criterion? 

*  What  always,  everywhere,  by  all  men' — why 
That  were  but  Custom,  and  your  system  needs 
Ideals  never  yet  incorporate, 
The  imminent  doom  of  Custom.     Can  you  find 
Appeal  beyond  the  sentience  in  each  man? 
Frighten  the  blind  with  scarecrows?  raise  an  awe 


A    COLLKt.E    i!!;i;.\K  FAST-PARTY.  265 

Of  things  unseen  where  appetite  commands 

Chambers  of  imagery  in  tne  soul 

At  all  its  avenues? — You  chant  your  hymns 

To  Evolution,  on  your  altar  lay 

A  sacred  egg  called  Progress:  have  you  proved 

A  Best  unique  where  all  is  relative, 

And  where  each  change  is  loss  as  well  as  gain? 

The  age  of  healthy  Saurians,  well  supplied 

With  heat  and  prey,  will  balance  well  enough 

A  human  age  where  maladies  are  strong 

And  pleasures  feeble;  wealth  a  monster  gorged 

Mid  hungry  populations;  intellect 

Aproned  in  laboratories,  bent  on  proof 

That  tliis  is  that  and  both  are  good  for  naught 

Save  feeding  error  through  a  weary  life; 

While  Art  and  Poesy  struggle  like  poor  ghosts 

To  hinder  cock-crow  and  the  dreadful  light, 

Lurking  in  darkness  and  the  charnel-house, 

Or  like  two  stalwart  graybeards,  imbecile 

With  limbs  still  active,  playing  at  belief 

That  hunt  the  slipper,  foot-ball,  hide-and-seek, 

Are  sweetly  merry,  donning  pinafores 

And  lisping  emulously  in  their  speech. 

0  human  race!     Is  this  then  all  thy  gain? — 

Working  at  disproof,  playing  at  belief, 

Debate  on  causes,  distaste  of  effects, 

Power  to  transmute  all  elements,  and  lack 

Of  any  power  to  sway  the  fatal  skill 

And  make  thy  lot  aught  else  than  rigid  doom? 

The  Saurians  were  better. — Gtiildenstern, 

Pass  me  the  taper.     Still  the  human  curse 

Has  mitigation  in  the  best  cigars." 

Then  swift  Laertes,  not  without  a  glare 

Of  leonine  wrath,  '•  I  thank  tliee  for  that  word: 

That  one  confession,  were  I  Socrates, 

Should  force  you  onward  till  you  ran  your  head 

At  your  own  image — flatly  gave  the  lie 

To  all  your  blasphemy  of  that  human  good 

Which  bred  and  nourished  you  to  sit  at  ease 

And  learnedly  deny  it.     Say  the  world 

Groans  ever  with  tin-  pangs  of  doubtful  births: 

Say,  life's  a  poor  donation  at  the  best — 

Wisdom  a  yearning  after  nothingness — 

Nature's  great  vision  ami  the  thrill  supreme 

Of  thought-fed  passion  but  a  weary  play — 


266  A   COLLEGE   BREAKFAST -PARTY. 

I  argue  not  against  you.     Who  can  prove 

Wit  to  be  witty  when  the  deeper  ground 

Dullness  intuitive  declares  wit  dull? 

If  life  is  worthless  to  you — why,  it  is. 

You  only  know  how  little  love  you  feel 

To  give  you  fellowship,  how  little  force 

Eesponsive  to  the  quality  of  things. 

Then  end  your  life,  throw  off  the  unsought  yoke 

If  not — if  you  remain  to  taste  cigars, 

Choose  racy  diction,  perorate  at  large 

With  tacit  scorn  of  meaner  men  who  win 

No  wreath  or  tripos — then  admit  at  least 

A  possible  Better  in  the  seeds  of  earth; 

Acknowledge  debt  to  that  laborious  life 

Which,  sifting  evermore  the  mingled  seeds, 

Testing  the  Possible  with  patient  skill, 

And  daring  ill  in  presence  of  a  good 

For  futures  to  inherit,  made  your  lot 

One  you  would  choose  rather  than  end  it,  nay, 

Rather  than,  say,  some  twenty  million  lots 

Of  fellow-Britons  toiling  all  to  make 

That  nation,  that  community,  whereon 

You  feed  and  thrive  and  talk  philosophy. 

I  am  no  optimist  whose  fate  must  hang 

On  hard  pretense  that  pain  is  beautiful 

And  agony  explained  for  men  at  ease 

By  virtue's  exercise  in  pitying  it. 

But  this  I  hold:  that  lie  who  takes  one  gift 

Made  for  him  by  the  hopeful  work  of  man, 

Who  tastes  sweet  bread,  walks  where  he  will  unarmed, 

His  shield  and  warrant  the  invisible  law, 

Who  owns  a  hearth  and  household  charities, 

Who  clothes  his  body  and  his  sentient  soul 

With  skill  and  thoughts  of  men,  and  yet  denies 

A  human  good  worth  toiling  for,  is  cursed 

With  worse  negation  than  the  poet  fedgned 

In  Mephistopheles.     The  Devil  spins 

His  wire-drawn  argument  against  all  good 

With  sense  of  brimstone  as  his  private  lot, 

And  never  drew  a  solace  from  the  earth. " 

Laertes  fuming  paused,  and  Guildenstern 
Took  up  with  cooler  skill  the  fusillade; 
"I  meet  your  deadliest  challenge,  Rosencranz — 
Where  get,  you  say,  a  binding  law,  a  rule 


A   COLLEGE   BUEAKFAST-PARTY  267 

Enforced  by  sanction,  an  ideal  throned 

With  thunder  in  its  hand?    I  answer,  there 

Whence  every  faith  and  rule  has  drawn  its  force 

Since  human  consciousness  awaking  owned 

An  outward,  whose  unconquerable  sway 

Resisted  first  and  then  subdued  desire 

By  pressure  of  the  dire  impossible, 

Urging  to  possible  ends  the  active  soul 

And  shaping  so  its  terror  and  its  love. 

Why,  you  have  said  it — threats  and  promises 

Depend  on  each  man's  sentience  for  their  force; 

All  sacred  rules,  imagined  or  revealed, 

Can  have  no  form  or  potency  apart 

From  the  percipient  and  emotive  mind. 

God,  duty,  love,  submission,  fellowship, 

Must  first  be  framed  in  man,  as  music  is, 

Before  they  live  outside  him  as  a  law. 

And  still  they  grow  and  shape  themselves  anew, 

With  fuller  concentration  in  their  life 

Of  inward  and  of  outward  energies, 

Blending  to  make  the  last  result  called  man, 

Which  means,  not  this  or  that  philosopher 

Looking  through  beauty  into  blankness,  not 

The  swindler  who  has  sent  his  fruitful  lie 

By  the  last  telegram;  it  means  the  tide 

Of  needs  reciprocal,  toil,  trust,  and  love — 

The  surging  multitude  of  human  claims 

Which  make  "a  presence  not  to  be  put  by" 

Above  the  horizon  of  the  general  soul. 

Is  inward  reason  shrunk  to  subtleties, 

And  inward  wisdom  pining  passion-starved? 

The  outward  reason  has  the  world  in  store, 

Regenerates  passion  with  the  stress  of  want, 

Regenerates  knowledge  with  discovery, 

Shows  sly  rapacious  self  a  blunderer, 

Widens  dependence,  knits  the  social  whole 

In  sensible  relation  more  defined. 

Do  boards  and  dirty-handed  millionaires 

Govern  the  planetary  system — sway 

The  pressure  of  the  Universe — decide 

That  man  henceforth  shall  retrogresss  to  ape, 

Emptied  of  every  sympathetic  thrill 

The  all  lias  wrought  up  in  him?  dam  up  henceforth 

The  flood  of  human  claims  as  private  force 

To  turn  their  wheels  and  make  a  private  hell 


268  A   COLLEGE    BKEAKFAST-PAKTY. 

For  fishpond  to  their  mercantile  domain? 

What  are  they  but  a  parasitic  growth 

On  the  vast  real  and  ideal  world 

Of  man  and  nature  blent  in  one  divine? 

Why,  take  your  closing  dirge — say  evil  grows 

And  good  is  dwindling;  science  mere  decay, 

Mere  dissolution  of  ideal  wholes 

Which  through  the  ages  past  alone  have  made 

The  earth  and  firmament  of  human  faith; 

Say,  the  small  arc  of  being  we  call  man 

Is  near  its  mergence,  what  seems  growing  life 

Nought  but  a  hurrying  change  toward  lower  types, 

The  ready  rankness  of  degeneracy. 

Well,  they  who  mourn  for  the  world's  dying  good 

May  take  their  common  sorrows  for  a  rock, 

On  it  erect  religion  and  a  church, 

A  worship,  rites,  and  passionate  piety — 

The  worship  of  the  best  though  crucified 

And  God-forsaken  in  its  dying  pangs; 

The  sacramental  rites  of  fellowship 

In  common  woe;  visions  that  purify 

Through  admiration  and  despairing  love 

Which  keep  their  spiritual  life  intact 

Beneath  the  murderous  clutches  of  disproof 

And  feed  a  martyr-strength." 

"Religion  high  I" 

(Rosencranz  here)  "but  with  communicants 
Few  as  the  cedars  upon  Lebanon — 
A  child  might  count  them.    What  the  world  demands 
Is  faith  coercive  of  the  multitude." 

"  Tush,  Guildenstern,  you  granted  him  too  much," 
Burst  in  Laertes;  "  I  will  never  grant 
One  inch  of  law  to  feeble  blasphemies 
Which  hold  no  higher  ratio  to  life — 
Full  vigorous  human  life  that  peopled  earth 
And  wrought  and  fought  and  loved  and  bravely  died — 
Than  the  sick  morning  glooms  of  debauchees. 
Old  nations  breed  old  children,  wizened  babes 
Whose  youth  is  languid  and  incredulous, 
Weary  of  life  without  the  will  to  die; 
Their  passions  visionary  appetites 
Of  bloodless  spectres  wailing  that  the  world 
For  lack  of  substance  slips  from  out  their  grasp; 


A   COLLEGE   BREAK  FAST-PARTY.  209 

Their  thoughts  the  withered  husks  of  all  things  dead, 
Holding  no  force  of  germs  instinct  with  life, 
Which  never  hesitates  but  moves  and  grows. 
Yet  hear  them  boast  in  screams  their  godlike  ill, 
Excess  of  knowing!     Fie  on  you,  Rosencranz! 
You  lend  your  brains  and  fine-dividing  tongue 
For  bass-notes  to  this  shriveled  crudity, 
This  immature  decrepitude  that  strains 
To  fill  our  ears  and  claim  the  prize  of  strength 
For  mere  unmanliness.     Out  on  them  all! — 
Wits,  puling  minstrels,  and  philosophers, 
Who  living  softly  prate  of  suicide, 
And  suck  the  commonwealth  to  feed  their  ease 
While  they  vent  epigrams  and  threnodies, 
Mocking  or  wailing  all  the  eager  work 
Which  makes  that  public  store  whereon  they  feed. 
Is  wisdom  flattened  sense  and  mere  distaste? 
Why,  any  superstition  warm  with  love, 
Inspired  with  purpose,  wild  with  energy 
That  streams  resistless  through  its  ready  frame, 
Has  more  of  human  truth  within  its  life 
Than  souls  that  look  through  color  into  naught, — 
Whose  brain,  top  unimpassioned  for  delight, 
Has  feeble  ticklings  of  a  vanity 
Which  finds  the  universe  beneath  its  mark, 
And  scorning  the  blue  heavens  as  merely  blue 
Can  only  say,  '  What  then?' — pre-eminent 
In  wondrous  want  of  likeness  to  their  kind, 
Founding  that  worship  of  sterility 
Whose  one  supreme  is  vacillating  Will 
Which  makes  the  Light,  then  says,  "Twere  better 
not.'" 

Here  rash  Laertes  brought  his  Handel-strain 
As  of  some  angry  Polypheme,  to  pause; 
And  Osric,  shocked  at  ardors  out  of  taste, 
Relieved  the  audience  with  a  tenor  voice 
And  delicate  delivery. 

"  For  me, 

I  range  myself  in  line  with  Rosencranz 
Against  all  schemes,  religious  or  profane, 
That  flaunt  a  Good  as  pretext  for  a  lash 
To  flog  us  all  who  have  the  better  taste, 
Into  conformity,  requiring  me 
At  peril  of  the  thong  and  sharp  disgrace 


270  A   COLLEGE   BKEAKFAST-PARTY. 

To  care  how  mere  Philistines  pass  their  lives; 

Whether  the  English  pauper-total  grows 

From  one  to  two  before  the  naughts;  how  far 

Teuton  will  outbreed  Roman;  if  the  class 

Of  proletaires  will  make  a  federal  band 

To  bind  all  Europe  and  America, 

Throw,  in  their  wrestling,  every  government, 

Snatch  the  world's  purse  and  keep  the  guillotine: 

Or  else  (admitting  these  are  casualties) 

Driving  my  soul  with  scientific  hail 

That  shuts  the  landscape  out  with  particles; 

Insisting  that  the  Palingenesis 

Means  telegraphs  and  measure  of  the  rate 

At  which  the  stars  move — nobody  knows  where. 

So  far,  my  Rosencranz,  we  are  at  one. 

But  not  when  you  blaspheme  the  life  of  Art, 

The  sweet  perennial  youth  of  Poesy, 

Which  asks  no  logic  but  its  sensuous  growth, 

No  right  but  loveliness;  which  fearless  strolls 

Betwixt  the  burning  mountain  and  the  sea, 

Reckless  of  earthquake  and  the  lava  stream, 

Filling  its  hour  with  beauty.     It  knows  naught 

Of  bitter  strife,  denial,  grim  resolve, 

Sour  resignation,  busy  emphasis 

Of  fresh  illusions  named  the  new-born  True, 

Old  Error's  latest  child;  but  as  a  lake 

Images  all  things,  yet  within  its  depths 

Dreams  them  all  lovelier  —  thrills  with  sound 

And  makes  a  harp  of  plenteous  liquid  chords  — 

So  Art  or  Poesy:  we  its  votaries 

Are  the  Olympians,  fortunately  born 

From  the  elemental  mixture;  'tis  our  lot 

To  pass  more  swiftly  than  the  Delian  God, 

But  still  the  earth  breaks  into  flowers  for  us, 

And  mortal  sorrows  when  they  reach  our  ears 

Are  dying  falls  to  melody  divine. 

Hatred,  war,  vice,  crime,  sin,  those  human  storms, 

Cyclones,  floods,  what  you  will — outbursts  of  force — 

Feed  art  with  contrast,  give  the  grander  touch 

To  the  master's  pencil  and  the  poet's  song, 

Serve  as  Vesuvian  fires  or  navies  tossed 

On  yawning  waters,  which  when  viewed  afar 

Deepen  the  calm  sublime  of  those  choice  souls 

Who  keep  the  heights  of  poesy,  and  turn 

A  fleckless  mirror  to  the  various  world, 


A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST  I'AIITY.  271 

Giving  its  many-named  and  fitful  flux 

An  imaged,  harmless,  spiritual  life, 

With  pure  selection,  native  to  art's  frame, 

Of  beauty  only,  save  its  minor  scale 

Of  ill  and  pain  to  give  the  ideal  joy 

A  keener  edge.     This  is  a  mongrel  globe; 

All  finer  being  wrought  from  its  coarse  earth 

Is  but  accepted  privilege:  what  else 

Your  boasted  virtue,  which  proclaims  itself 

A  good  above  the  average  consciousness? 

Nature  exists  by  partiality 

(Each  planet's  poise  must  carry  two  extremes 

With  verging  breadths  of  minor  wretchedness): 

We  are  her  favorites  and  accept  our  wings. 

For  your  accusal,  Eosencranz,  that  art 

Shares  in  the  dread  and  weakness  of  the  time, 

I  hold  it  null;  since  art  or  poesy  pure, 

Being  blameless  by  all  standards  save  her  own, 

Takes  no  account  of  modern  or  antique 

In  morals,  science,  or  philosophy: 

No  dull  elenchus  makes  a  yoke  for  her, 

Whose  law  and  measure  are  the  sweet  consent 

Of  sensibilities  that  move  apart 

From  rise  or  fall  of  systems,  states  or  creeds  — 

Apart  from  what  Philistines  call  man's  weal." 

"Ay,  we  all  know  those  votaries  of  the  Muse 
Ravished  with  singing  till  they  quite  forgot 
Their  manhood,  sang,  and  gaped,  and  took  no  food, 
Then  died  of  emptiness,  and  for  reward 
Lived  on  as  grasshoppers"  —  Laertes  thus: 
But  then  he  checked  himself  as  one  who  feels 
His  muscles  dangerous,  and  Guildenstern 
Filled  up  the  pause  with  calmer  confidence. 

;'You  use  your  wings,  my  Osric,  poise  yourself 
Safely  outside  all  reach  of  argument, 
Then  dogmatise  at  will  (a  method  known 
To  ancient  women  and  philosophers, 
Nay,  to  Philistines  whom  you  most  abhor); 
Else,  could  an  arrow  reach  you,  I  should  ask 
Whence  came  taste,  beauty,  sensibilities 
Refined  to  preference  infallible? 
Doubtless,  ye're  gods  —  these  odors  ye  inhale, 
A  sacrificial  scent.     But  how,  I  pray, 


272  A   COLLEGE    BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

Are  odors  made,  if  not  by  gradual  change 

Of  sense  or  substance?    Is  your  beautiful 

A  seedless,  rootless  flower,  or  has  it  grown 

With  human  growth,  which  means  the  rising  sum. 

Of  human  struggle,  order,  knowledge  ?  —  sense 

Trained  to  a  fuller  record,  more  exact  — 

To  truer  guidance  of  each  passionate  force? 

Get  me  your  roseate  flesh  without  the  blood; 

Get  fine  aromas  without  structure  wrought 

From  simpler  being  into  manifold: 

Then  and  then  only  flaunt  your  Beautiful 

As  what  can  live  apart  from  thought,  creeds,  states, 

Which  mean  life's  structure.     Osric,  I  beseech  — 

The  infallible  should  be  more  catholic  — 

Join  in  a  war-dance  with  the  cannibals, 

Hear  Chinese  music,  love  a  face  tattooed, 

Give  adoration  to  a  pointed  skull, 

And  think  the  Hindu  Siva  looks  divine: 

'Tis  art,  'tis  poesy.     Say,  you  object: 

How  came  you  by  that  lofty  dissidence, 

If  not  through  changes  in  the  social  man 

Widening  his  consciousness  from  Here  and  Now 

To  larger  wholes  beyond  the  reach  of  sense; 

Controlling  to  a  fuller  harmony 

The  thrill  of  passion  and  the  rule  of  fact; 

And  paling  false  ideals  in  the  light 

Of  full-rayed  sensibilities  which  blend 

Truth  and  desire?    Taste,  beauty,  what  are  they 

But  the  soul's  choice  toward  perfect  bias  wrought 

By  finer  balance  of  a  fuller  growth — 

Sense  brought  to  subtlest  metamorphosis 

Through  love,  thought,  joy — the  general  human  store 

Which  grows  from  all  life's  functions?    As  the  plant 

Holds  its  corolla,  purple,  delicate, 

Solely  as  outflush  of  that  energy 

Which  moves  transformingly  in  root  and  branch/' 

Guildenstern  paused,  and  Hamlet  quivering 

Since  Osric  spoke,  in  transit  imminent 

From  catholic  striving  into  laxity, 

Ventured  his  word.     "  Seems  to  me,  Guildenstern, 

Your  argument,  though  shattering  Osric's  point 

That  sensibilities  can  move  apart 

From  social  order,  yet  has  not  annulled 

His  thesis  that  the  life  of  poesy 


A    COLLEGE    BREAKFAST- PARTY.  273 

(Admitting  it  must  grow  from  out  the  whole) 

Has  separate  functions,  a  transfigured  realm 

Freed  from  the  rigors  of  the  practical, 

Where  what  is  hidden  from  the  grosser  world — 

Stormed  down  by  roar  of  engines  and  the  shouts 

9f  eager  concourse — rises  beauteous 

As  voice  of  water-drops  in  sapphire  caves; 

A  realm  where  finest  spirits  have  free  sway 

In  exquisite  selection,  uncontrolled 

By  hard  material  necessity 

Of  cause  and  consequence.     For  you  will  grant 

The  Ideal  has  discoveries  which  ask 

No  test,  no  faith,  save  that  we  joy  in  them; 

A  new-found  continent,  with  spreading  lands 

Where  pleasure  charters  all,  where  virtue,  rank, 

Use,  right,  and  truth  have  but  one  name,  Delight. 

Thus  Art's  creations,  when  etherealized 

To  least  admixture  of  the  grosser  fact 

Delight  may  stamp  as  highest/' 

"Possible!" 

Said  Guildenstern,  with  touch  of  weariness, 
But  then  we  might  dispute  of  what  is  gross, 
What  high,  what  low." 

"  Nay/'  said  Laertes,  "  ask 

The  mightiest  makers  who  have  reigned,  still  reign 
Within  the  ideal  realm.     See  if  their  thought 
Be  drained  of  practice  and  the  thick  warm  blood 
Of  hearts  that  beat  in  action  various 
Through  the  wide  drama  of  the  struggling  world. 
Good-bye,  Horatio." 

Each  now  said  "Good-bye." 
Such  breakfast,  such  beginning  of  the  day 
Is  more  than  half  the  whole.     The  sun  was  hot 
On  southward  branches  of  the  meadow  elms, 
The  shadows  slowly  farther  crept  and  veered 
Like  changing  memories,  and  Hamlet  strolled 
Alone  and  dubious  on  the  empurpled  path 
Between  the  waving  grasses  of  new  June 
Close  by  the  stream  where  well-compacted  boats 
Were  moored  or  moving  with  a  lazy  creak 
To  the  soft  dip  of  oars.     All  sounds  were  light 
As  tiny  silver  bells  upon  the  robes 
Of  hovering  silence.     Birds  made  twitterings 
That  seemed  but  Silence  self  o'erfull  of  love. 


274  A   COLLEGE   BREAKFAST-PARTY. 

'Twas  invitation  all  to  sweet  repose; 

And  Hamlet,  drowsy  with  the  mingled  draughts 

Of  cider  and  conflicting  sentiments, 

Chose  a  green  couch  and  watched  with  half -closed  eyes 

The  meadow-road,  the  stream  and  dreamy  lights, 

Until  they  merged  themselves  in  sequence  strange 

With  undulating  ether,  time,  the  soul, 

The  will  supreme,  the  individual  claim, 

The  social  Ought,  the  lyrist's  liberty, 

Democritus,  Pythagoras,  in  talk 

With  Anselm,  Darwin,  Comte,  and  Schopenhauer, 

The  poets  rising  slow  from  out  their  tombs 

Summoned  as  arbiters — that  border-world 

Of  dozing,  ere  the  sense  is  fully  locked. 

And  then  he  dreamed  a  dream  so  luminous 
He  woke  (he  says)  convinced;  but  what  it  taught 
Withholds  as  yet.     Perhaps  those  graver  shades 
Admonished  him  that  visions  told  in  haste 
Part  with  their  virtues  to  the  squandering  lips 
And  leave  the  soul  in  wider  emptiness. 


TWO  LOVERS. 


Two  lovers  by  a  moss-grown  spring: 
They  leaned  soft  cheeks  together  there, 
Mingled  the  dark  and  sunny  hair, 
And  heard  the  wooing  thrushes  sing. 
0  budding  time! 
O  love's  blest  prime! 

Two  wedded  from  the  portal  stepped: 
The  bells  made  happy  carolings, 
The  air  was  soft  as  fanning  wings, 
White  petals  on  the  pathway  slept. 
0  pure-eyed  bride! 
0  tender  pride! 

Two  faces  o'er  a  cradle  bent: 
Two  hands  above  the  head  were  locked; 
These  pressed  each  other  while  they  rocked, 
Those  watched  a  life  that  love  had  sent. 
0  solemn  hour! 
0  hidden  power! 

Two  parents  by  the  evening  fire: 
The  red  light  fell  about  their  knees 
On  heads  that  rose  by  slow  degrees 
Like  buds  upon  the  lily  spire. 
0  patient  life! 
0  tender  strife! 

The  two  still  sat  together  there, 
The  red  light  shone  about  their  knees; 
But  all  the  heads  by  slow  degrees 
Had  gone  and  left  that  lonely  pair. 
0  voyage  fast! 
0  vanished  past! 

The  red  light  shone  upon  the  floor 

And  made  the  space  between  them  wide; 
They  drew  their  chairs  up  side  by  side, 
Their  pale  cheeks  joined,  and  said,  "Once  more!" 
0  memories! 
0  past  that  is! 
275 


SELF   AND  LIFE. 


SELF. 

CHANGEFUL  comrade,  Life  of  mine, 

Before  we  two  must  part, 
I  will  tell  thee,  thou  shalt  say, 

What  thou  hast  been  and  art. 
Ere  I  lose  my  hold  of  thee 
Justify  thyself  to  me. 

LIFE. 

I  was  thy  warmth  upon  thy  mother's  knee 
When  light  and  love  within  her  eyes  were  one; 

We  laughed  together  by  the  laurel-tree, 

Culling  warm  daisies  'neath  the  sloping  sun; 

We  heard  the  chickens'  lazy  croon, 

Where  the  trellised  woodbines  grew, 
And  all  the  summer  afternoon 
Mystic  gladness  o'er  thee  threw. 
Was  it  person?    Was  it  thing? 
Was  it  touch  or  whispering? 
It  was  bliss  and  it  was  I: 
Bliss  was  what  thou  knew'st  me  by. 

SELF. 

Soon  I  knew  thee  more  by  Fear 

And  sense  of  what  was  not, 
Haunting  all  I  held  most  dear; 

I  had  a  double  lot : 
Ardor,  cheated  with  alloy, 
Wept  the  more  for  dreams  of  joy. 

LIFE. 

Eemember  how  thy  ardor's  magic  sense 

Made  poor  things  rich  to  thee  and  small  things  great; 
How  hearth  and  garden,  field  and  bushy  fence, 

Were  thy  own  eager  love  incorporate; 
276 


SELF   AND  LIFE.  277 

And  how  the  solemn,  splendid  Past 

O'er  thy  early  widened  earth 
Made  grandeur,  as  on  sunset  cast 
Dark  elms  near  take  mighty  girth. 
Hands  and  feet  were  tiny  still 
When  we  knew  the  historic  thrill, 
Breathed  deep  breath  in  heroes  dead, 
Tasted  the  immortals'  bread. 

SELF. 

Seeing  what  I  might  have  been 

Reproved  the  thing  I  was, 
Smoke  on  heaven's  clearest  sheen, 

The  speck  within  the  rose. 
By  revered  ones'  frailties  stung 
Reverence  was  with  anguish  wrung. 

LIFE. 

But  all  thy  anguish  and  thy  discontent 
Was  growth  of  mine,  the  elemental  strife 

Toward  feeling  manifold  with  vision  blent 
To  wider  thought :  I  was  no  vulgar  life 

That,  like  the  water-mirrored  ape, 

Not  discerns  the  thing  it  sees, 
Nor  knows  its  own  in  others'  shape, 
Railing,  scorning,  at  its  ease. 
Half  man's  truth  must  hidden  lie 
If  unlit  by  Sorrow's  eye. 
I  by  Sorrow  wrought  in  thee 
Willing  pain  of  ministry. 

SELF. 

Slowly  was  the  lesson  taught 

Through  passion,  error,  care| 
Insight  was  with  loathing  fraught 

And  effort  with  despair. 
Written  on  the  wall  I  saw 
"  Bow!"  I  knew,  not  loved,  the  law. 

LIFE. 

But  then  I  brought  a  love  that  wrote  within 
The  law  of  gratitude,  and  made  thy  heart 


278  SELF   AND   LIFE. 

Beat  to  the  heavenly  tune  of  seraphin 
Whose  only  joy  in  having  is,  to  impart: 

Till  thou,  poor  Self — despite  thy  ire, 

Wrestling  'gainst  my  mingled  share, 
Thy  faults,  hard  falls,  and  vain  desire 
Still  to  be  what  others  were — 
Filled,  o'erflowed  with  tenderness 
Seeming  more  as  thou  wert  less, 
Knew  me  through  that  anguish  past 
As  a  fellowship  more  vast. 

SELF. 

Yea,  I  embrace  thee,  changeful  Life! 

Far-sent,  unchosen  mate! 
Self  and  thou,  no  more  at  strife, 

Shall  wed  in  hallowed  state. 
Willing  spousals  now  shall  prove 
Life  is  justified  by  love. 


"SWEET  EVENINGS  COME  AND  GO,  LOVE." 


"  La  noche  buena  se  viene, 

La  noche  buena  se  va, 
Y  nosotros  nos  iremos 
Y  no  volveremos  mas." 

—Old  VWancico. 

SWEET  evenings  come  and  go,  love, 

They  came  and  went  of  yore: 
This  evening  of  our  life,  love, 

Shall  go  and  come  no  more. 

When  we  have  passed  away,  love, 
All  things  will  keep  their  name; 

But  yet  no  life  on  earth,  love, 
With  ours  will  be  the  same. 

The  daisies  will  be  there,  love, 

The  stars  in  heaven  will  shine: 
I  shall  not  feel  thy  wish,  love, 

Nor  thou  my  hand  in  thine. 

A  better  time  will  come,  love, 

And  better  souls  be  born: 
I  would  not  be  the  best,  love, 

To  leave  thee  now  forlorn. 
379 


THE  DEATH  OF  MOSES. 


MOSES,  who  spake  with  God  as  with  his  friend, 
And  ruled  his  people  with  the  twofold  power 
Of  wisdom  that  can  dare  and  still  be  meek, 
Was  writing  his  last  word,  the  sacred  name 
Unutterable  of  that  Eternal  Will 
Which  was  and  is  and  evermore  shall  be. 
Yet  was  his  task  not  finished,  for  the  flock 
Needed  its  shepherd  and  the  life-taught  sage 
Leaves  no  successor;  but  to  chosen  men, 
The  rescuers  and  guides  of  Israel, 
A  death  was  given  called  the  Death  of  Grace, 
Which  freed  them  from  the  burden  of  the  flesh 
But  left  them  rulers  of  the  multitude 
And  loved  companions  of  the  lonely.     This 
Was  God's  last  gift  to  Moses,  this  the  hour 
When  soul  must  part  from  self  and  be  but  soul. 

God  spake  to  Gabriel,  the  messenger 
Of  mildest  death  that  draws  the  parting  life 
Gently,  as  when  a  little  rosy  child 
Lifts  up  its  lips  from  off  the  bowl  of  milk 
And  so  draws  forth  a  curl  that  dipped  its  gold 
In  the  soft  white — thus  Gabriel  draws  the  soul. 
"  Go  bring  the  soul  of  Moses  unto  me!" 
And  the  awe-stricken  angel  answered,  "  Lord, 
How  shall  I  dare  to  take  his  life  who  lives 
Soul  of  his  kind,  not  to  be  likened  once 
In  all  the  generations  of  the  earth?" 

Then  God  called  Michael,  him  of  pensive  brow, 
Snow-vest  and  flaming  sword,  who  knows  and  acts: 

"  Go  bring  the  spirit  of  Moses  unto  me!" 
But  Michael,  with  such  grief  as  angels  feel, 
Loving  the  mortals  whom  they  succor,  plead: 

"Almighty,  spare  me;  it  was  I  who  taught 
Thy  servant  Moses;  he  is  part  of  me 
As  I  of  thy  deep  secrets,  knowing  them," 
380 


THE    DKATH    OF   MOSES.  ?81 

Then  God  called  Zamael,  the  terrible, 
The  angel  of  fierce  death,  of  agony 
That  comes  in  battle  and  in  pestilence 
Kemorseless,  sudden  or  with  lingering  throes. 
And  Zamael,  his  raiment  and  broad  wings 
Blood-tinctured,  the  dark  lustre  of  his  eyes 
Shrouding  the  red,  fell  like  the  gathering  night 
Before  the  prophet.     But  that  radiance 
Won  from  the  heavenly  presence  in  the  mount 
Gleamed  on  the  prophet's  brow  and  dazzling  pierced 
Its  conscious  opposite:  the  angel  turned 
His  murky  gaze  aloof  and  inly  said: 
"An  angel  this,  deathless  to  angel's  stroke.*' 

But  Moses  felt  the  subtly  nearing  dark: — 
"Who  art  thou?  and  what  wilt  thou?"  Zamael  then: 
"  I  am  God's  reaper;  through  the  fields  of  life 
I  gather  ripened  and  unripened  souls 
Both  willing  and  unwilling.     And  I  come 
Now  to  reap  thee."     But  Moses  cried, 
Firm  as  a  seer  who  waits  the  trusted  sign: 
"  Heap  thou  the  fruitless  plant  and  common  herb — 
Not  him  who  from  the  womb  was  sanctified 
To  teach  the  law  of  purity  and  love." 
And  Zamael  baffled  from  his  errand  fled. 

But  Moses,  pausing,  in  the  air  serene 
Heard  now  that  mystic  whisper,  far  yet  near, 
The  all-penetrating  Voice,  that  said  to  him, 

"Moses,  the  hour  is  come  and  thou  must  die." 

"Lord,  I  obey;  but  thou  rememberest 
How  thou,  ineffable,  didst  take  me  once 
Within  thy  orb  of  light  untouched  by  death." 
Then  the  voice  answered,  "  Be  no  more  afraid: 
With  me  shall  be  thy  death  and  burial." 
So  Moses  waited,  ready  now  to  die. 

And  the  Lord  came,  invisible  as  a  thought, 

Throe  angels  gleaming  on  his  secret  track, 

Prince  Michael,  Zama<"l,  Gabriel,  charged  to  guard 

The  soul-forsaken  body  as  it  fell 

And  bear  it  to  the  hidden  sepulchre 

Denied  forever  to  the  search  of  man. 

And  the  Voice  said  to  Moses:  "  Close  thine  eyes," 


282  THE    DE.VTH   OF   MOSES. 

He  closed  them.    ' '  Lay  thine  hand  upon  thine  heart, 

And  draw  thy  feet  together."    He  obeyed. 

And  the  Lord  said,  "0,  spirit!  child  of  mine! 

A  hundred  years  and  twenty  thou  hast  dwelt 

Within  this  tabernacle  wrought  of  clay. 

This  is  the  end:  come  forth  and  flee  to  heaven. " 

But  the  grieved  soul  with  plaintive  pleading  cried, 
"I  love  this  body  with  a  clinging  love: 
The  courage  fails  me,  Lord,  to  part  from  it." 

"  0  child,  come  forth !  for  thou  shalt  dwell  with  me 
About  the  immortal  throne  where  seraphs  joy 
In  growing  vision  and  in  growing  love." 

Yet  hesitating,  fluttering,  like  the  bird 

With  young  wing  weak  and  dubious,  the  soul 

Stayed.     But  behold!  upon  the  death-dewed  lips 

A  kiss  descended,  pure,  unspeakable — 

The  bodiless  Love  without  embracing  Love 

That  lingered  in  the  body,  drew  it  forth 

With  heavenly  strength  and  carried  it  to  heaven. 

But  now  beneath  the  sky  the  watchers  all, 
Angels  that  keep  the  homes  of  Israel 
Or  on  high  purpose  wander  o'er  the  world 
Leading  the  Gentiles,  felt  a  dark  eclipse: 
The  greatest  ruler  among  men  was  gone. 
And  from  the  westward  sea  was  heard  a  wail, 
A  dirge  as  from  the  isles  of  Javanim, 
Crying,  "  Who  now  is  left  upon  the  earth 
Like  him  to  teach  the  right  and  smite  the  wrong?" 
And  from  the  East,  far  o'er  the  Syrian  waste, 
Came  slowlier,  sadlier,  the  answering  dirge: 
"  No  prophet  like  him  lives  or  shall  arise 
In  Israel  or  the  world  forevermore." 

But  Israel  waited,  looking  toward  the  mount, 
Till  with  the  deepening  eve  the  elders  came 
Saying,  "His  burial  is  hid  with  God. 
We  stood  far  off  and  saw  the  angels  lift 
His  corpse  aloft  until  they  seemed  a  star 
That  burned  itself  away  within  the  sky." 


THE    DEATH   OF   MOSES.  283 

The  people  answered  with  mute  orphaned  gaze 
Looking  for  what  had  vanished  evermore. 
Then  through  the  gloom  without  them  and  within 
The  spirit's  shaping  light,  mysterious  speech, 
Invisible  Will  wrought  clear  in  sculptured  sound, 
The  thought-begotten  daughter  of  the  voice, 
Thrilled  on  their  listening  sense:  "He  has  no  tomb. 
He  dwells  not  with  you  dead,  but  lives  as  Law/' 


ARION. 

(HEKOD.  I.  24.) 


ARION,  whose  melodic  soul 
Taught  the  dithyramb  to  roll 

Like  forest  fires,  and  sing 

Olympian  suffering, 

Had  carried  his  diviner  lore 
From  Corinth  to  the  sister  shore 

Where  Greece  could  largelier  be, 

Branching  o'er  Italy. 

Then  weighted  with  his  glorious  name 
And  bags  of  gold,  aboard  he  came 
'Mid  harsh  seafaring  men 
To  Corinth  bound  again. 

The  sailors  eyed  the  bags  and  thought: 
"  The  gold  is  good,  the  man  is  naught — 
And  who  shall  track  the  wave 
That  opens  for  his  grave  ?" 

With  brawny  arms  and  cruel  eyes 
They  press  around  him  where  he  lies 
In  sleep  beside  his  lyre, 
Hearing  the  Muses  choir. 

He  waked  and  saw  this  wolf-faced  Death 
Breaking  the  dream  that,  filled  his  breath 

With  inspiration  strong 

Of  yet  unchanted  song. 

"Take,  take  my  gold  and  let  me  live!" 
He  prayed,  as  kings  do  when  they  give 
Their  all  with  royal  will, 
Holding  born  kingship  still. 
384 


ARION.  285 

To  rob  the  living  they  refuse, 
One  death  or  other  he  must  choose, 

Either  the  watery  pall 

Or  wounds  and  burial. 

My  solemn  robe  then  let  me  don, 
Give  me  high  space  to  stand  upon, 

That  dying  I  may  pour 

A  song  unsung  before." 

It  pleased  them  well  to  grant  this  prayer, 
To  hear  for  naught  how  it  might  fare 

With  men  who  paid  their  gold 

For  what  a  poet  sold. 

In  flowing  stole,  his  eyes  aglow 
With  inward  fire,  he  neared  the  prow 

And  took  his  god-like  stand, 

The  cithara  in  hand. 

The  wolfish  men  all  shrank  aloof, 
And  feared  this  singer  might  be  proof 

Against  their  murderous  power, 

After  his  lyric  hour. 

But  he,  in  liberty  of  song. 
Fearless  of  death  or  other  wrong, 

With  full  spondaic  toll 

Poured  forth  his  mighty  soul: 

Poured  forth  the  strain  his  dream  had  taught, 
A  nonie  with  lofty  passion  fraught 

Such  as  makes  battles  won 

On  fields  of  Marathon. 

The  last  long  vowels  trembled  then 
As  awe  within  those  wolfish  men: 

They  said,  with  mutual  stare, 

Some  god  was  present  there. 

But  lo!  Arion  leaped  on  high 
Ready,  his  descant  done,  to  die; 

Not  asking,  "  Is  it  well?" 

Like  a  pierced  eagle  fell. 


"O  MAY  I  JOIN  THE  CHOIR  INVISIBLE." 


Longum  ttlud  tempus,  quum  non  ero,  magis  me  movet,  quam  hoc  exbguwm.- 
ClCKBO,  ad  Att.,  xii.  18. 

0  MAY  I  join  the  choir  invisible 

Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 

In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence:  live 

In  pulses  stirred  to  generosity, 

In  deeds  of  daring  rectitude,  in  scorn 

For  miserable  aims  that  end  with  self, 

In  thoughts  sublime  that  pierce  the  night  like  stars, 

And  with  their  mild  persistence  urge  man's  search 

To  vaster  issues. 

So  to  live  is  heaven: 
To  make  undying  music  in  the  world, 
Breathing  as  beauteous  order  that  controls 
With  growing  sway  the  growing  life  of  man. 
So  we  inherit  that  sweet  purity 
For  which  we  struggled,  failed,  and  agonized 
With  widening  retrospect  that  bred  despair. 
Rebellious  flesh  that  would  not  be  subdued, 
A  vicious  parent  shaming  still  its  child 
Poor  anxious  penitence,  is  quick  dissolved; 
Its  discords,  quenched  by  meeting  harmonies, 
Die  in  the  large  and  charitable  air. 
And  all  our  rarer,  better,  truer  self, 
That  sobbed  religiously  in  yearning  song, 
That  watched  to  ease  the  burden  of  the  world, 
Laboriously  tracing  what  must  be, 
And  what  may  yet  be  better — saw  within 
A  worthier  image  for  the  sanctuary, 
And  shaped  it  forth  before  the  multitude 
Divinely  human,  raising  worship  so 
To  higher  reverence  more  mixed  with  love — 
That  better  self  shall  live  till  human  Time 
Shall  fold  its  eyelids,  and  the  human  sky 
Be  gathered  like  a  scroll  within  the  tomb 
Unread  forever. 

This  is  life  to  come, 

Which  martyred  men  have  made  more  glorious 
For  us  to  strive  to  follow.     May  I  reach 
286 


"0  MAY   I   JOIN  THE  CHOIR  INVISIBLE."          28? 

That  purest  heaven,  be  to  other  souls 
The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony, 
Enkindle  generous  ardor,  feed  pure  love, 
Beget  the  smiles  that  have  no  cruelty — 
Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused, 
And  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense. 
So  shall  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world. 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 


ie 


This  Work  was  first  written  in  the  winter  of  1864-65; 
after  a  visit  to  Spain  in  1867  it  was  rewritten  and  amplified. 
The  reader  conversant  with  Spanish  poetry  will  see  that  in 
two  of  the  Lyrics  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  imitate  the 
trochaic  measure  and  assonance  of  the  Spanish  Ballad. 

May,  1868. 


290 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 


BOOK  I. 

TIS  the  warm  South,  where  Europe  spreads  her  lands 
Like  fretted  leaflets,  breathing  on  the  deep: 
Broad-breasted  Spain,  leaning  with  equal  love 
On  the  Mid  Sea  that  moans  with  memories, 
And  on  the  untraveled  Ocean's  restless  tides. 
This  river,  shadowed  by  the  battlements 
And  gleaming  silvery  toward  the  northern  sky, 
Feeds  the  famed  stream  that  waters  Andalus 
And  loiters,  amorous  of  the  fragrant  air, 
By  Cordova  and  Seville  to  the  bay 
Fronting  Algarva  and  the  wandering  flood 
Of  Guadiana.     This  deep  mountain  gorge 
Slopes  widening  on  the  olive-plumed  plains 
Of  fair  Granada:  one  far-stretching  arm 
Points  to  Elvira,  one  to  eastward  heights 
Of  Alpujarras  where  the  new-bathed  Day 
With  oriflamme  uplifted  o'er  the  peaks 
Saddens  the  breasts  of  northward-looking  snows 
That  loved  the  night,  and  soared  with  soaring  stars; 
Flashing  the  signals  of  his  ncaring  swiftness 
From  Almeria's  purple-shadowed  bay 
On  to  the  far-off  rocks  that  gaze  and  glow — 
On  to  Alhambra,  strong  and  ruddy  heart 
Of  glorious  Morisma,  gasping  now, 
A  maimed  giant  in  his  agony. 
This  town  that  dips  its  feet  within  the  stream, 
And  seems  to  sit  a  tower-crowned  Cybele, 
Spreading  her  ample  robe  adown  the  rocks, 
Is  rich  Bedmar:  'twas  Moorish  long  ago, 
But  now  the  Cross  is  sparkling  on  the  Mosque, 
And  bells  make  Catholic  the  trembling  air. 
The  fortress  gleams  in  Spanish  sunshine  now 
('Tis  south  a  mile  before  the  rays  are  Moorish) — 
Hereditary  jewel,  agraffe  bright 
On  all  the  many-titled  privilege 
Of  young  Duke  Silva.     No  Castilian  knight 
291 


292  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

That  serves  Queen  Isabel  has  higher  charge; 

For  near  this  frontier  sits  the  Moorish  king, 

Not  Boabdil  the  waverer,  who  usurps 

A  throne  he  trembles  in,  and  fawning  licks 

The  feet  of  conquerors,  but  that  fierce  lion 

Grisly  El  Zagal,  who  has  made  his  lair 

In  Guadix'  fort,  and  rushing  thence  with  strength, 

Half  his  own  fierceness,  half  the  untainted  heart 

Of  mountain  bands  that  fight  for  holiday, 

Wastes  the  fair  lands  that  lie  by  Alcala, 

Wreathing  his  horse's  neck  with  Christian  heads. 

To  keep  the  Christian  frontier — such  high  trust 

Is  young  Duke  Silva's;  and  the  time  is  great. 

(What  times  are  little?    To  the  sentinel 

That  hour  is  regal  when  he  mounts  on  guard.) 

The  fifteenth  century  since  the  Man  Divine 

Taught  and  was  hated  in  Capernaum 

Is  near  its  end — is  falling  as  a  husk 

Away  from  all  the  fruit  its  years  have  riped. 

The  Moslem  faith,  now  flickering  like  a  torch 

In  a  night  struggle  on  this  shore  of  Spain, 

Glares  a  broad  column  of  advancing  flame, 

Along  the  Danube  and  the  Illyrian  shore 

Far  into  Italy,  where  eager  monks, 

Who  watch  in  dreams  and  dream  the  while  they  watch, 

See  Christ  grow  paler  in  the  baleful  light, 

Crying  again  the  cry  of  the  forsaken. 

But  faith,  the  stronger  for  extremity, 

Becomes  prophetic,  hears  the  far-off  tread 

Of  western  chivalry,  sees  downward  sweep 

The  archangel  Michael  with  the  gleaming  sword, 

And  listens  for  the  shriek  of  hurrying  fiends 

Chased  from  their  revels  in  God's  sanctuary. 

So  trusts  the  monk,  and  lifts  appealing  eyes 

To  the  high  dome,  the  Church's  firmament, 

Where  the  blue  light-pierced  curtain,  rolled  away, 

Reveals  the  throne  and  Him  who  sits  thereon. 

So  trust  the  men  whose  best  hope  for  the  world 

Is  ever  that  the  world  is  near  its  end: 

Impatient  of  the  stars  that  keep  their  course 

And  make  no  pathway  for  the  coming  Judge. 

But  other  futures  stir  the  world's  great  heart. 
The  West  now  enters  on  the  heritage 


THK    SPANISH    (,VPSY.  293 

Won  from  the  tombs  of  mighty  ancestors, 

The  seeds,  the  gold,  the  gems,  the  silent  harps 

That  lay  deep  buried  with  the  memories 

Of  old  renown. 

No  more,  as  once  in  sunny  Avignon, 

The  poet-scholar  spreads  the  Homeric  page, 

And  gazes  sadly,  like  the  deaf  at  song; 

For  now  the  old  epic  voices  ring  again 

And  vibrate  with  the  beat  and  melody 

Stirred  by  the  warmth  of  old  Ionian  days. 

The  martyred  sage,  the  Attic  orator, 

Immortally  incarnate,  like  the  gods, 

In  spiritual  bodies,  winged  words 

Holding  a  universe  impalpable, 

Find  a  new  audience.     Foreverrnore, 

With  grander  resurrection  than  was  feigned 

Of  Attila's  fierce  Huns,  the  soul  of  Greece 

Conquers  the  bulk  of  Persia.     The  maimed  form 

Of  calmly-joyous  beauty,  marble-limbed, 

Yet  breathing  with  the  thought  that  shaped  its  lips, 

Looks  mild  reproach  from  out  its  opened  grave 

At  creeds  of  terror;  and  the  vine-wreathed  god 

Fronts  the  pierced  Image  with  the  crown  of  thorns. 

The  soul  of  man  is  widening  toward  the  past: 

No  longer  hanging  at  the  breast  of  life 

Feeding  in  blindness  to  his  parentage — 

Quenching  all  wonder  with  Omnipotence, 

Praising  a  name  with  indolent  piety — 

He  spells  the  record  of  his  long  descent, 

More  largely  conscious  of  the  life  that  was. 

And  from  the  height  that  shows  where  morning  shone 

On  far-off  summits  pale  and  gloomy  now, 

The  horizon  widens  round  him,  and  the  west 

Looks  vast  with  untracked  waves  whereon  his  gaze 

Follows  the  flight  of  the  swift-vanished  bird 

That  like  the  sunken  sun  is  mirrored  still 

Upon  the  yearning  soul  within  the  eye. 

And  so  in  Cordova  through  patient  nights 

Columbus  watches,  or  he  sails  in  dreams 

Between  the  setting  stars  and  finds  new  day; 

Then  wakes  again  to  the  old  weary  days, 

Girds  on  the  cord  and  frock  of  pale  Saint  Francis, 

And  like  him  zealous  pleads  with  foolish  men. 

I  ask  but  fur  a  million  maravedis: 

Give  me  three  caravels  to  find  a  world, 


x5'J4  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

New  shores,  new  realms,  new  .soldiers  for  the  Cross. 
Son  cosas  grandes  !"    Thus  he  pleads  in  vain; 
Yet  faints  not  utterly,  but  pleads  anew, 
Thinking,  "  God  means  it,  and  has  chosen  me." 
For  this  man  is  the  pulse  of  all  mankind 
Feeding  an  embryo  future,  offspring  strange 
Of  the  fond  Present,  that  with  mother-prayers 
And  mother-fancies  looks  for  championship 
Of  all  her  loved  beliefs  and  old-world  ways 
From  that  young  Time  she  bears  within  her  womb. 
The  sacred  places  shall  be  purged  again, 
The  Turk  converted,  and  the  Holy  Church, 
Like  the  mild  Virgin  with  the  outspread  robe, 
Shall  fold  all  tongues  and  nations  lovingly. 

But  since  God  works  by  armies,  who  shall  be 

The  modern  Cyrus?    Is.  it  France  most  Christian, 

Who  with  his  lilies  and  brocaded  knights, 

French  oaths,  French  vices,  and  the  newest  style 

Of  out-puffed  sleeve,  shall  pass  from  west  to  east, 

A  winnowing  fan  to  purify  the  seed 

For  fair  millennial  harvests  soon  to  come? 

Or  is  not  Spain  the  land  of  chosen  warriors? — 

Crusaders  consecrated  from  the  womb, 

Carrying  the  sword-cross  stamped  upon  their  souls 

By  the  long  yearnings  of  a  nation's  life, 

Through  all  the  seven  patient  centuries 

Since  first  Pelayo  and  his  resolute  band 

Trusted  the  God  within  their  Gothic  hearts 

At  Covadunga,  and  defied  Mahound; 

Beginning  so  the  Holy  War  of  Spain 

That  now  is  panting  with  the  eagerness 

Of  labor  near  its  end.     The  silver  cross 

Glitters  o'er  Malaga  and  streams  dread  light 

On  Moslem  galleys,  turning  all  their  stores 

From  threats  to  gifts.     What  Spanish  knight  is  he 

Who,  living  now,  holds  it  not  shame  to  live 

Apart  from  that  hereditary  battle 

Which  needs  his  sword?     Castilian  gentlemen 

Choose  not  their  task — they  choose  to  do  it  well. 

The  time  is  great,  and  greater  no  man's  trust 
Than  his  who  keeps  the  fortress  for  his  king. 
Wearing  great  honors  as  some  delicate  robe 
Brocaded  o'er  with  names  'twere  sin  to  tarnish. 


T1IE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  2U5 

Boru  de  la  Cerda,  Calatravan  knight, 
Count  oi  Segura,  fourth  duke  of  Bedmar, 
Offshoot  from  that  high  stock  of  old  Castile 
Whose  topmost  branch  is  proud  Medina  Celi — 
Such  titles  with  their  blazonry  are  his 
Who  keeps  this  fortress,  its  sworn  governor, 
Lord  of  the  valley,  master  of  the  town, 
Commanding  whom  he  will,  himself  commanded 
By  Christ  his  Lord  who  sees  him  from  the  Cross 
And  from  bright  heaven  where  the  Mother  pleads; — 
By  good  Saint  James  upon  the  milk-white  steed, 
Who  leaves  his  bliss  to  tight  for  chosen  Spain; — 
By  the  dead  gaze  of  all  his  ancestors; — 
And  by  the  mystery  of  his  Spanish  blood 
Charged  with  the  awe  and  glories  of  the  past. 

See  now  with  soldiers  in  his  front  and  rear 

He  winds  at  evening  through  the  narrow  streets 

That  toward  the  Castle  gate  climb  devious: 

His  charger,  of  fine  Andalusian  stock, 

An  Indian  beauty,  black  but  delicate, 

Is  conscious  of  the  herald  trumpet  note, 

The  gathering  glances,  and  familiar  ways 

That  lead  fast  homeward:  she  forgets  fatigue, 

And  at  the  light  touch  of  the  master's  spur 

Thrills  with  the  zeal  to  bear  him  royally, 

Arches  her  neck  and  clambers  up  the  stones 

As  if  disdainful  of  the  difficult  steep.  9 

Night-black  the  charger,  black  the  rider's  plume, 

But  all  between  is  bright  with  morning  hues  — 

Seems  ivory  and  gold  and  deep  blue  gems, 

And  starry  flashing  steel  and  pale  vermilion, 

All  set  in  jasper:  on  his  surcoat  white 

Glitter  the  sword-belt  and  the  jeweled  hilt, 

Ked  on  the  back  and  breast  the  holy  cross, 

And  'twixt  the  helmet  and  the  soft-spun  white 

Thick  tawny  wavelets  like  the  lion's  mane 

Turn  backward  from  his  brow,  pale,  wide,  erect, 

Shadowing  blue  eyes  —  blue  as  the  rain-washed  sky 

That  braced  the  early  stem  of  Gothic  kings 

He  claims  for  ancestry.     A  goodly  knight, 

A  noble  caballero,  broad  of  chest 

And  long  of  limli.     So  much  the  August  sun, 

Now  in  the  west  but  shooting. half  its  beams 

Past  a  dark  rocky  profile  toward  the  plain, 


296  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

At  windings  of  the  path  across  the  slope 

Makes  suddenly  luminous  for  all  who  see: 

For  women  smiling  from  the  terraced  roofs; 

For  boys  that  prone  on  trucks  with  head  up-propped 

Lazy  and  curious,  stare  irreverent; 

For  men  who  make  obeisance  with  degrees 

Of  good-will  shading  toward  servility, 

Where  good-will  ends  and  secret  fear  begins 

And  curses,  too,  low-muttered  through  the  teeth, 

Explanatory  to  the  God  of  Shem. 

Five,  grouped  within  a  whitened  tavern  court 
Of  Moorish  fashion,  where  the  trellised  vines 
Purpling  above  their  heads  make  odorous  shade, 
Note  through  the  open  door  the  passers-by, 
Getting  some  rills  of  novelty  to  speed 
The  lagging  stream  of  talk  and  help  the  wine. 
'Tis  Christian  to  drink  wine:  whoso  denies 
His  flesh  at  bidding  save  of  Holy  Church, 
Let  him  beware  and  take  to  Christian  sins 
Lest  he  be  taxed  with  Moslem  sanctity. 

c  \ 

The  souls  are  five,  the  talkerc  only  three. 

(No  time,  most  tainted  by  wrong  faith  and  rule, 

But  holds  some  listeners  and  dumb  animals.) 

MINE  HOST  is  one:  he  with  the  well-arched  nose, 

Soft-ey^d,  fat-handed,  loving  men  for  naught 

But  his  Iwn  humor,  patting  old  and  young 

Upon  the  back,  and  mentioning  the  cost 

With  confidential  blandness,  as  a  tax 

That  he  collected  much  against  his  will 

From  Spaniards  who  were  all  his  bosom  friends: 

Warranted  Christian — else  how  keep  an  inn, 

Which  calling  asks  true  faith?  though  like  his  wine 

Of  cheaper  sort,  a  trifle  over-new. 

His  father  was  a  convert,  chose  the  chrism 

As  men  choose  physic,  kept  his  chimney  warm 

With  smokiest  wood  upon  a  Saturday, 

Counted  his  gains  and  grudges  on  a  chaplet, 

And  crossed  himself  asleep  for  fear  of  spies; 

Trusting  the  God  of  Israel  would  see 

'Twas  Christian  tyranny  that  made  him  base. 

Our  host  his  son  was  born  ten  years  too  soon, 

Had  heard  his  mother  call  him  Ephraim. 

Knew  holy  things  from  common,  thought  it  sin 


XHL   BPAHISB    (.Vl'SY.  t>'.i; 

To  feast  on  days  when  Israel's  children  mourned, 

So  had  to  be  converted  with  his  sire, 

To  doff  the  awe  he  learned  as  Ephraim, 

And  suit  his  manners  to  a  Christian  name. 

But  infant  awe,  that  unborn  moving  thing, 

Dies  with  what  nourished  it,  can  never  rise 

From  the  dead  womb  and  walk  and  seek  new  pasture. 

Thus  baptism  seemed  to  him  a  merry  game 

Not  tried  before,  all  sacraments  a  mode 

Of  doing  homage  for  one's  property, 

And  all  religions  a  queer  human  whim 

Or  else  a  vice,  according  to  degrees: 

As,  'tis  a  whim  to  like  your  chestnuts  hot, 

Burn  your  own  mouth  and  draw  your  face  awry, 

A  vice  to  pelt  frogs  with  them  —  animals 

Content  to  take  life  coolly.     And  Lorenzo 

Would  have  all  lives  made  easy,  even  lives 

Of  spiders  and  inquisitors,  yet  still 

Wishing  so  well  to  flies  and  Moors  and  Jews 

He  rather  wished  the  others  easy  death; 

For  loving  all  men  clearly  was  deferred 

Till  all  men  loved  each  other.     Such  Mine  Host, 

With  chiseled  smile  caressing  Seneca, 

The  solemn  mastiff  leaning  on  his  knee. 

His  right-hand  guest  is  solemn  as  the  dog, 
Square-faced  and  massive:  BLASCO  is  his  name, 
A  prosperous  silversmith  from  Aragon; 
In  speech  not  silvery,  rather  tuned  as  notes 
From  a  deep  vessel  made  of  plenteous  iron, 
Or  some  great  bell  of  slow  but  certain  swing 
That,  if  you  only  wait,  will  tell  the  hour 
As  well  as  flippant  clocks  that  strike  in  haste 
And  set  off  chiming  a  superfluous  tune — 
Like  JUAN  there,  the  spare  man  with  the  lute, 
Who  makes  you  dizzy  with  his  rapid  tongue, 
Whirring  athwart  your  mind  with  comment  swift 
On  speech  you  would  have  finished  by-and-by, 
Shooting  your  bird  for  you  while  you  were  loading, 
Cheapening  your  wisdom  as  a  pattern  known, 
Woven  by  any  shuttle  on  demand.    • 
Can  never  sit  quite  still,  too:  sees  a  wasp 
And  kills  it  with  a  movement  like  a  flash; 
Whistles  low  notes  or  seems  to  thrum  his  lute 
As  a  mere  hyphen  'twixt  two  syllables. 


2U8  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Of  any  steadier  man;  walks  up  and  down 

And  snuffs  the  orange  flowers  and  shoots  a  pea 

To  hit  a  streak  of  light  let  through  the  awning. 

Has  a  queer  face:  eyes  large  as  plums,  a  nose 

Small,  round,  uneven,  like  a  bit  of  wax 

Melted  and  cooled  by  chance.     Thin-fingered,  lithe, 

And  as  a  squirrel  noiseless,  startling  men 

Only  by  quickness.     In  his  speech  and  look 

A  touch  of  graceful  wildness,  as  of  things 

Not  trained  or  tamed  for  uses  of  the  world; 

Most  like  the  Fauns  that  roamed  in  days  of  old 

About  the  listening  whispering  woods,  and  shared 

The  subtler  sense  of  sylvan  ears  and  eyes 

Undulled  by  scheming  thought,  yet  joined  the  rout 

Of  men  and  women  on  the  festal  days, 

And  played  the  syrinx  too,  and  knew  love's  pains, 

Turning  their  anguish  into  melody. 

For  Juan  was  a  minstrel  still,  in  times 

When  minstrelsy  was  held  a  thing  outworn. 

Spirits  seemed  buried  and  their  epitaph 

Is  writ  in  Latin  by  severest  pens, 

Yet  still  they  flit  above  the  trodden  grave 

And  find  new  bodies,  animating  them 

In  quaint  and  ghostly  way  with  antique  souls. 

So  Juan  was  a  troubadour  revived, 

Freshening  life's  dusty  road  with  babbling  rills 

Of  wit  and  song,  living  'mid  harnessed  men 

With  limbs  ungalled  by  armor,  ready  so 

To  soothe  them  weary,  and  to  cheer  them  sad. 

Guest  at  the  board,  companion  in  the  camp, 

A  crystal  mirror  to  the  life  around, 

Flashing  the  comment  keen  of  simple  fact 

Defined  in  words;  lending  brief  lyric  voice 

To  grief  and  sadness;  hardly  taking  note 

Of  difference  betwixt  his  own  and  others'; 

But  rather  singing  as  a  listener 

To  the  deep  moans,  the  cries,  the  wild  strong  joys 

Of  universal  Nature,  old  yet  young. 

Such  Juan,  the  third  talker,  shimmering  bright 

As  butterfly  or  bird  with  quickest  life. 

The  silent  ROLDAN  has  his  brightness  too, 

But  only  in  his  spangles  and  rosettes. 

His  parti-colored  vest  and  crimson  hose 

Are  dulled  with  old  Valencian  dust,  his  eyes 

With  straining  fifty  years  at  gilded  balls 


THE    SPANISH    U\PSY. 

To  catch  them  dancing,  or  with  brazen  looks 

At  men  and  women  as  he  made  his  jests 

Some  thousand  times  and  watched  to  count  the  pence 

His  wife  was  gathering.     His  olive  face 

Has  an  old  writing  in  it,  characters 

Stamped  deep  by  grins  that  had  no  merriment, 

The  soul's  rude  mark  proclaiming  all  its  blank; 

As  on  some  faces  that  have  long  grown  old 

In  lifting  tapers  up  to  forms  obscene 

On  ancient  walls  and  chuckling  with  false  zest 

To  please  my  lord,  who  gives  the  larger  fee 

For  that  hard  industry  in  apishness. 

Roldan  would  gladly  never  laugh  again; 

Pensioned,  he  would  be  grave  as  any  ox, 

And  having  beans  and  crumbs  and  oil  secured 

Would  borrow  no  man's  jokes  forevermore. 

'Tis  harder  now  because  his  wife  is  gone, 

Who  had  quick  feet,  and  danced  to  ravishment 

Of  every  ring  jeweled  with  Spanish  eyes, 

But  died  and  left  this  boy,  lame  from  his  birth, 

And  sad  and  obstinate,  though  when  he  will 

He  sings  God-taught  such  marrow-thrilling  strains 

As  seem  the  very  voice  of  dying  Spring, 

A  flute-like  wail  that  mourus  the  blossoms  gone, 

And  sinks,  and  is  not,  like  their  fragrant  breath, 

With  fine  transition  on  the  trembling  air. 

He  sits  as  if  imprisoned  by  some  fear, 

Motionless,  with  wide  eyes  that  seem  not  made 

For  hungry  glancing  of  a  twelve-year'd  boy 

To  mark  the  living  thing  that  he  could  tease, 

But  for  the  gaze  of  some  primeval  sadness 

Dark  twin  with  light  in  the  creative  ray. 

This  little  PABLO  has  his  spangles  too, 

And  large  rosettes  to  hide  his  poor  left  foot 

Rounded  like  any  hoof  (his  mother  thought 

God  willed  it  so  to  punish  all  her  sins). 

I  said  the  souls  were  five — besides  the  dog. 

But  there  was  still  a  sixth,  with  wrinkled  face, 

Grave  and  disgusted  with  all  merrimenf 

Not  less  than  Holdan.      It  is  AXXIP.AL, 

The  experienced  nmnkry  who  performs  tin*  tricks, 

Jumps  through  tin-  hoop-.  ;u><l  carries  round  the  hat. 

Once  full  of  .-allies  and  impromptu  ! 

Now  cautious  not  to  light  on  aught  that's  new, 


300  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Lest  he  be  whipped  to  do  it  o'er  again 
From  A  to  Z,  and  make  the  gentry  laugh: 
A  misanthropic  monkey,  gray  and  grim, 
Bearing  a  lot  that  has  no  remedy 
For  want  of  concert  in  the  monkey  tribe. 

We  see  the  company,  above  their  heads 
The  braided  matting,  golden  as  ripe  corn, 
Stretched  in  a  curving  strip  close  by  the  grapes, 
Elsewhere  rolled  back  to  greet  the  cooler  sky; 
A  fountain  near,  vase-shapen  and  broad-lipped, 
Where  timorous  birds  alight  with  tiny  feet, 
And  hesitate  and  bend  wise  listening  ears, 
And  fly  away  again  with  undipped  beak. 
On  the  stone  floor  the  juggler's  heaped-up  goods, 
Carpet  and  hoops,  viol  and  tambourine, 
Where  Annibal  sits  perched  with  brows  severe, 
A  serious  ape  whom  none  take  seriously, 
Obliged  in  this  fool's  world  to  earn  his  nuts 
By  hard  buffoonery.     We  see  them  all. 
And  hear  their  talk — the  talk  of  Spanish  men, 
With  Southern  intonation,  vowels  turned 
Caressingly  between  the  consonants, 
Persuasive,  willing,  with  such  intervals 
As  music  borrows  from  the  wooing  birds, 
That  plead  with  subtly  curving,  sweet  descent — 
And  yet  can  quarrel,  as  these  Spaniards  can. 

JUAN  (near  the  doorway). 

You  hear  the  trumpet?     There's  old  Ramon's  blast. 

No  bray  but  his  can  shake  the  air  so  well. 

He  takes  his  trumpeting  as  solemnly 

As  angel  charged  to  wake  the  dead;  thinks  war 

Was  made  for  trumpeters,  and  their  great  art 

Made  solely  for  themselves  who  understand  it. 

His  features  all  have  shaped  themselves  to  blowing, 

And  when  his  trumpet's  bagged  or  left  at  home 

He  seems  a  chattel  in  a  broker's  booth, 

A  spoutless  watering-can,  a  promise  to  pay 

No  sum  particular.     0  fine  old  Ramon! 

The  blasts  get  louder  and  the  clattering  hoofs; 

They  crack  the  ear  as  well  as  heaven's  thunder 

For  owls  that  listen  blinking.     There's  the  banner. 


THE    SPANISH   OYPSY.  301 

HOST  (joining  him :  the  others  follow  to  the  door). 

The  Duki1  has  finished  recoinioitering,  then? 
We  shall  hear  news.     They  say  he  means  a  sally — 
Would  strike  El  Zagal's  Moors  as  they  push  home 
Like  auts  with  booty  heavier  than  themselves; 
Then,  joined  by  other  nobles  with  their  bands, 
Lay  siege  to  Guadix.     Juan,  you're  a  bird 
That  nest  within  the  castle.     What  say  you? 

JUAN. 

Naught,  I  say  naught.     'Tis  but  a  toilsome  game 

To  bet  upon  that  feather  Policy, 

And  guess  where  after  twice  a  hundred  puffs 

'Twill  catch  another  feather  crossing  it: 

Guess  how  the  Pope  will  blow  and  how  the  king; 

What  force  my  lady's  fan  has;  how  a  cough 

Seizing  the  Padre's  throat  may  raise  a  gust, 

And  how  the  queen  may  sigh  the  feather  down. 

Such  catching  at  imaginary  threads, 

Such  spinning  twisted  air,  is  not  for  me. 

If  I  should  want  a  game,  I'll  rather  bet 

On  racing  snails,  two  large,  slow,  lingering  snails — 

No  spurring,  equal  weights — a  chance  sublime, 

Nothing  to  guess  at,  pure  uncertainty. 

Here  comes  the  Duke.     They  give  but  feeble  shouts. 

And  some  look  sour. 

HOST. 

That  spoils  a  fair  occasion. 
Civility  brings  no  conclusions  with  it, 
And  cheerful  Vivas  make  the  moments  glide 
Instead  of  grating  like  a  rusty  wheel. 

JUAN. 

0  they  are  dullards,  kick  because  they're  stung, 
And  bruise  a  friend  to  show  they  Hate  a  wasp. 

HOST. 

Best  treat  your  wasp  with  delicate  regard; 

When  the  right  moment  comes  say,  "By  your  leave." 

Use  your  heel — so!  and  make  an  end  of  him. 

That's  if  we  talked  of  wasps;  but  our  young  Duke — 

Spain  holds  not  a  more  gallant  gentleman. 


302  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Live,  live,  Duke  Silva!    'Tis  a  rare  smile  he  has, 
But  seldom  seen. 

JUAN. 

A  true  hidalgo's  smile, 
That  gives  much  favor,  but  beseeches  none. 
His  smile  is  sweetened  by  his  gravity: 
It  conies  like  dawn  upon  Sierra  snows, 
Seeming  more  generous  for  the  coldness  gone; 
Breaks  from  the  calm — a  sudden  opening  flower 
On  dark  deep  waters:  now  a  chalice  shut, 
A  mystic  shrine,  the  next  a  full-rayed  star, 
Thrilling,  pulse-quickening  as  a  living  word. 
1*11  make  a  song  of  that. 

HOST. 

Prithee,  not  now. 

You'll  fall  to  staring  like  a  wooden  saint, 
And  wag  your  head  as  it  were  set  on  wires. 
Here's  fresh  sherbet.     Sit,  be  good  company. 
(Jb  BLASCO)  You  are  a  stranger,  sir,  and  cannot  know 
How  our  Duke's  nature  suits  his  princely  frame. 

BLASCO. 

Nay,  but  I  marked  his  spurs — chased  cunningly! 

A  duke  should  know  good  gold  and  silver  plate; 

Then  he  will  know  the  quality  of  mine. 

I've  ware  for  tables  and  for  altars  too, 

Our  Lady  in  all  sizes,  crosses,  bells: 

He'll  need  such  weapons  full  as  much  as  swords 

If  he  would  capture  any  Moorish  town. 

For,  let  me  tell  you,  when  a  mosque  is  cleansed 

JUAN. 

The  demons  fly  so  thick  from  sound  of  bells 

And  smell  of  incense,  you  may  see  the  air 

Streaked  with  them  as  with  smoke.     Why,  they  are 

spirits: 

You  may  well  think  how  crowded  they  must  be 
To  make  a  sort  of  haze. 

BLASCO. 

I  knew  not  that. 
Still,  they're  of  smoky  nature,  demons  are; 


Tin-:  SPANISH  uYi'sv.  303 

And  since  you  say  so — well,  it  proves  the  more 

The  need  of  bells  and  censers.     Ay,  your  Duke 

Sat  well:  a  true  hidalgo.     I  can  judge — 

Of  harness  specially.     I  saw  the  camp, 

The  royal  camp  at  Velez  Malaga. 

'Twas  like  the  court  of  heaven — such  liveries! 

And  torches  carried  by  the  score  at  night 

Before  the  nobles.     Sirs,  I  made  a  dish 

To  set  an  emerald  in  would  fit  a  crown, 

For  Don  Alonzo,  lord  of  Aguilar. 

Your  Duke's  no  whit  behind  him  in  his  mien 

Or  harness  either.     But  you  seem  to  say 

The  people  love  him  not. 

HOST. 

They've  naught  against  him. 
But  certain  winds  will  make  men's  temper  bad. 
When  the  Solano  blows  hot  venomed  breath, 
It  acts  upon  men's  knives:  steel  takes  to  stabbing 
Which  else,  with  cooler  winds,  were  honest  steel, 
Cutting  but  garlick.     There's  a  wind  just  now 
Blows  right  from  Seville 

BLASCO. 

Ay,  you  mean  the  wind 

Yes,  yes,  a  wind  that's  rather  hot 

HOST. 

With  faggots. 

JUAN. 

A  wind  that  suits  not  with  our  townsmen's  blood. 
Abram,  'tis  said,  objected  to  be  scorched, 
And,  as  the  learned  Arabs  vouch,  he  gave 
The  antipathy  in  full  to  Ishmael. 
JTis  true,  these  patriarchs  had  their  oddities. 

BLASCO. 

Their  oddities?    Fm  of  their  mind,  I  know. 
Though,  as  to  Abraham  and  Ishmael, 
I'm  an  old  Christian,  and  owe  naught  to  them 
Or  any  Jew  among  them.     But  I  know 
We  made  a  stir  in  Saragossa — we: 


304  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

The  men  of  Aragon  ring  hard  —  true  metal. 
Sirs,  I'm  no  friend  to  heres^y,  but  then 
A  Christian's  money  is  not  safe.     As  how? 
A  lapsing  Jew  or  any  heretic 
May  owe  me  twenty  ounces:  suddenly 
He's  prisoned,  suffers  penalties  —  'tis  well: 
If  men  will  not  believe,  'tis  good  to  make  them, 
But  let  the  penalties  fall  on  them  alone. 
The  Jew  is  stripped,  his  goods  are  confiscate; 
Now,  where,  I  pray  you,  go  my  twenty  ounces? 
God  knows,  and  perhaps  the  King  may,  but  not  I. 
Vnd  more,  my  son  may  lose  his  young  wife's  dower 
Because  'twas  promised  since  her  father's  soul 
Fell  to  wrong  thinking.     How  was  I  to  know? 
I  could  but  use  my  sense  and  cross  myself. 
Christian  is  Christian  —  I  give  in  —  but  still 
Taxing  is  taxing,  though  you  call  it  holy. 
We  Saragossans  liked  not  this  new  tax 
They  call  the  —  nonsense,  I'm  from  Aragon! 
I  speak  too  bluntly.     But,  for  Holy  Church, 
No  man  believes  more. 

HOST. 

Nay,  sir,  never  fear. 
Good  Master  Koldan  here  is  no  delator. 

BOLD  AN  (starting  from  a  reverie). 

You  speak  to  me,  sirs?    I  perform  to-night  — 
The  Pla9a  Santiago.     Twenty  tricks, 
All  different.     I  dance,  too.     And  the  boy 
Sings  like  a  bird.     I  crave  your  patronage. 

BLASCO. 

Faith,  you  shall  have  it,  sir.     In  traveling 
I  take  a  little  freedom,  and  am  gay. 
You  marked  not  what  I  said  just  now  ? 


I?  no. 

I  pray  your  pardon.     I've  a  twinging  knee, 
That  makes  it  hard  to  listen.     You  were  saying? 

BLASCO. 

Nay,  it  was  naught.     (Aside  to  HOST)  Is  it  his  deep- 
ness? 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  305 

HOST. 

No. 
He's  deep  in  nothing  but  his  poverty. 

BLASCO. 
But  'twas  his  poverty  that  made  me  think 

HOST. 

His  piety  might  wish  to  keep  the  feasts 
As  well  as  fasts.     No  fear;  he  hears  not. 

BLASCO. 

Good. 

I  speak  my  mind  about  the  penalties, 
But  look  you,  I'm  against  assassination. 
You  know  my  meaning — Master  Arbues, 
The  grand  Inquisitor  in  Aragon. 
I  knew  naught — paid  no  copper  toward  the  deed. 
But  I  was  there,  at  prayers,  within  the  church. 
How  could  I  help  it?    Why,  the  saints  were  there, 
And  looked  straight  on  above  the  altars.     I 

JUAN. 

Looked  carefully  another  way. 

BLASCO. 

Why,  at  my  beads. 

'Twas  after  midnight,  and  the  canons  all 
Were  chanting  matins.     I  was  not  in  church 
To  gape  and  stare.     I  saw  the  martyr  kneel; 
I  never  liked  the  look  of  him  alive — 
He  was  no  martyr  then.     I  thought  he  made 
An  ugly  shadow  as  he  crept  athwart 
The  bands  of  light,  then  passed  within  the  gloom 
By  the  broad  pillar.     'Twas  in  our  great  Seo, 
At  Saragossa.     The  pillars  tower  so  large 
You  cross  yourself  to  see  them,  lest  white  Death 
Should  hide  behind  their  dark.     And  so  it  was. 
I  looked  away  again  and  told  my  beads 
Unthinkingly;  but  still  a  man  has  ears; 
And  right  across  the  chanting  came  a  sound 
As  if  a  tree  had  crushed  above  the  roar 
20 


306  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Of  some  great  torrent.     So  it  seemed  to  me; 

For  when  you  listen  long  and  shut  your  eyes 

Small  sounds  get  thunderous.     He  had  a  shell 

Like  any  lobster;  a  good  iron  suit 

From  top  to  toe  beneath  the  innocent  serge. 

That  made  the  tell-tale  sound.    But  then  came  shrieks. 

The  chanting  stopped  and  turned  to  rushing  feet, 

And  in  the  midst  lay  Master  Arbues, 

Felled  like  an  ox.     'Twas  wicked  butchery. 

Some  honest  men  had  hoped  it  would  have  scared 

The  Inquisition  out  of  Aragon. 

'Twas  money  thrown  away — I  would  say,  crime — 

Clean  thrown  away. 

HOST. 

That  was  a  pity  now 

Next  to  a  missing  thrust,  what  irks  me  most 
Is  a  neat  well-aimed  stroke  that  kills  your  man, 
Yet  ends  in  mischief — as  in  Aragon. 
It  was  a  lesson  to  our  people  here. 
Else  there's  a  monk  within  our  city  walls, 
A  holy,  high-born,  stern  Dominican, 
They  might  have  made  the  great  mistake  to  kill. 

BLASCO. 

What!  is  he? 

HOST. 

Yes;  a  Master  Arbue"s 
Of  finer  quality.     The  Prior  here 
And  uncle  to  our  Duke. 

BLASCO. 

He  will  want  plate; 
A  holy  pillar  or  a  crucifix. 
But,  did  you  say,  he  was  like  Arbues? 

JUAN. 

As  a  black  eagle  with  gold  beak  and  claws 

Is  like  a  raven.     Even  in  his  cowl. 

Covered  from  head  to  foot,  the  Prior  is  known 

From  all  the  black  herd  round.     When  he  uncovers 

And  stands  white-frocked,  with  ivory  face,  his  eyes 

Black-gleaming,  black  his  coronal  of  hair 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  30? 

Like  shredded  jasper,  he  seems  less  a  man 

With  struggling  aims,  than  pure  incarnate  Will, 

Fit  to  subdue  rebellious  nations,  nay, 

That  human  flesh  he  breathes  in,  charged  with  passion 

Which  quivers  in  his- nostril  and  his  lip, 

But  disciplined  by  long  in-dwelling  will 

To  silent  labor  in  the  yoke  of  law. 

A  truce  to  thy  comparisons,  Lorenzo! 

Thine  is  no  subtle  nose  for  difference; 

'Tis  dulled  by  feigning  and  civility. 

HOST. 

Pooh,  thou'rt  a  poet,  crazed  with  finding  words 

May  stick  to  things  and  seem  like  qualities. 

No  pebble  is  a  pebble  in  thy  hands: 

'Tis  a  moon  out  of  work,  a  barren  egg, 

Or  twenty  things  that  no  man  sees  but  thee. 

Our  Father  Isidor's — a  living  saint, 

And  that  is  heresy,  some  townsmen  think: 

Saints  should  be  dead,*  accord  ing  to  the  Church. 

My  mind  is  this:  the  Father  is  so  holy 

'Twere  sin  to  wish  his  soul  detained  from  bliss. 

Easy  translation  to  the  realms  above, 

The  shortest  journey  to  the  seventh  heaven, 

Is  what  I'd  never  grudge  him. 

BLASCO. 

Piously  said. 

Look  you,  I'm  dutiful,  obey  the  Church 
When  there's  no  help  for  it:  I  mean  to  say, 
When  Pope  and  Bishop  and  all  customers 
Order  alike.     But  there  be  bishops  now, 
And  were  aforetime,  who  have  held  it  wrong, 
This  hurry  to  convert  the  Jews.     As  how? 
Your  Jew  pays  tribute  to  the  bishop,  say. 
That's  good,  and  must  please  God,  to  see  the  Church 
Maintained  in  ways  that  ease  the  Christian's  purse. 
Convert  the  Jew,  and  where's  the  tribute,  pray? 
He  lapses,  too:  'tis  slippery  work,  conversion: 
And  then  the  holy  taxing  carries  off 
His  money  at  one  sweep.     No  tribute  more! 
He's  penitent  or  burned,  and  there's  an  end. 
Now  guess  which  pleases  God 


308  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

JUAN. 

Whether  he  likes 
A  well-burned  Jew  or  well-fed  bishop  best. 

[While  Juan  put  this  problem  theologic 
Entered,  with  resonant  step,  another  guest — 
A  soldier:  all  his  keenness  in  his  sword, 
His  eloquence  in  scars  upon  his  cheek, 
His  virtue  in  much  slaying  of  the  Moor: 
With  brow  well-creased  in  horizontal  folds 
To  save  the  space,  as  having  naught  to  do: 
Lips  prone  to  whistle  whisperingly — no  tune, 
But  trotting  rhythm:  meditative  eyes, 
Most  often  fixed  upon  his  legs  and  spurs: 
Styled  Captain  Lopez.] 

LOPEZ. 

At  your  service,  sirs. 

JUAN.  • 

Ha,  Lopez?    Why,  thou  hast  a  face  full-charged 
As  any  herald's.     What  news  of  the  wars? 

LOPEZ. 
Such  news  as  is  most  bitter  on  my  tongue. 

JUAN. 
Then  spit  it  forth. 

HOST. 

Sit,  Captain:  here's  a  cup, 
Fresh-filled.     What  news? 

LOPEZ. 

'Tis  bad.     We  make  no  sally: 
We  sit  still  here  and  wait  whate'er  the  Moor 
Shall  please  to  do. 

HOST. 

Some  townsmen  will  be  glad. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  309 

LOPEZ. 

Glad,  will  they  be?    But  I'm  not  glad,  not  I, 
Nor  any  Spanish  soldier  of  clean  blood. 
But  the  Duke's  wisdom  is  to  wait  a  siege 
Instead  of  laying  one.     Therefore  —  meantime  — 
He  will  be  married  straightway. 

HOST. 

Ha,  ha,  ha! 

Thy  speech  is  like  an  hourglass;  turn  it  down 
The  other  way,  'twill  stand  as  well,  and  say 
The  Duke  will  wed,  therefore  he  waits  a  siege. 
But  what  says  Don  Diego  and  the  Prior? 
The  holy  uncle  and  the  fiery  Don? 

LOPEZ. 

0  there  be  sayings  running  all  abroad 

As  thick  as  nuts  overturned.     No  man  need  lack. 

Some  say,  'twas  letters  changed  the  Duke's  intent: 

From  Malaga,  says  Bias.     From  Rome,  says  Quintin. 

From  spies  at  Guadix,  says  Sebastian. 

Some  say  'tis  all  a  pretext  —  say,  the  Duke 

Is  but  a  lapdog  hanging  on  a  skirt, 

Turning  his  eyeballs  upward  like  a  monk: 

'Twas  Don  Diego  said  that  —  so  says  Bias; 

Last  week,  he  said  - 


0  do  without  the  "said!" 
Open  thy  mouth  and  pause  in  lieu  of  it. 
I  had  as  lief  be  pelted  with  a  pea 
Irregularly  in  the  self-same  spot 
As  hear  such  iteration  without  rule, 
Such  torture  of  uncertain  certainty. 

LOPEZ. 

Santiago!  Juan,  thou  art  hard  to  please. 
I  speak  not  for  my  own  delighting,  I. 
I  can  be  silent,  I. 

BLASCO. 

Nay,  sir,  speak  on] 


310  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

I  like  your  matter  well.     I  deal  in  plate. 
This  wedding  touches  me.     Who  is  the  bride? 

LOPEZ. 

One  that  some  say  the  Duke  does  ill  to  wed. 

One  that  his  mother  reared — God  rest  her  soul! — 

Duchess  Diana — she  who  died  last  year. 

A  bird  picked  up  away  from  any  nest. 

Her  name — the  Duchess  gave  it — is  Fedalma. 

No  harm  in  that.     But  the  Duke  stoops,  they  say, 

In  wedding  her.     And  that's  the  simple  truth. 

JUAN. 

Thy  simple  truth  is  but  a  false  opinion: 
The  simple  truth  of  asses  who  believe 
Their  thistle  is  the  very  best  of  food. 
Fie,  Lopez,  thou  a  Spaniard  with  a  sword 
Dreamest  a  Spanish  noble  ever  stoops 
By  doing  honor  to  the  maid  he  loves! 
He  stoops  alone  when  he  dishonors  her. 

LOPEZ. 
Nay,  I  said  naught  against  her. 

JUAN. 

Better  not. 

Else  I  would  challenge  thee  to  fight  with  wits, 
And  spear  thee  through  and  through  ere  thou  couldst 

draw 

The  bluntest  word.     Yes,  yes,  consult  thy  spurs: 
Spurs  are  a  sign  of  knighthood,  and  should  tell  thee 
That  knightly  love  is  blent  with  reverence 
As  heavenly  air  is  blent  with  heavenly  blue. 
Don  Silva's  heart  beats  to  a  loyal  tune: 
He  wills  no  highest-born  Castilian  dame, 
Betrothed  to  highest  noble,  should  be  held 
More  sacred  than  Fedalma.     He  enshrines 
Her  virgin  image  for  the  general  awe 
And  for  his  own — will  guard  her  from  the  world, 
Nay,  his  profaner  self,  lest  he  should  lose 
The  place  of  his  religion.     He  does  well. 
Naught  can  come  closer  to  the  poet's  strain, 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  311 

HOST. 

Or  farther  from  his  practice,  Juan,  eh? 
If  thou'rt  a  sample? 

JUAN. 

Wrong  there,  my  Lorenzo! 
Touching  Fedalma  the  poor  poet  plays 
A  finer  part  even  than  the  noble  Duke. 

LOPEZ. 

By  making  ditties,  singing  with  round  mouth 
Likest  a  crowing  cock?    Thou  meanest  that? 

JUAN. 

Lopez,  take  physic,  thou  art  getting  ill, 
Growing  descriptive;  'tis  unnatural. 
I  mean,  Don  Silva's  love  expects  reward, 
Kneels  with  a  heaven  to  come;  but  the  poor  poet 
Worships  without  reward,  nor  hopes  to  find 
A  heaven  save  in  his  worship.     He  adores 
The  sweetest  woman  for  her  sweetness'  sake, 
Joys  in  the  love  that  was  not  born  for  him, 
Because  'tis  lovingness,  as  beggars  joy, 
Warming  their  naked  limbs  on  wayside  walls, 
To  hear  a  tale  of  princes  and  their  glory. 
There's  a  poor  poet  (poor,  I  mean,  in  coin) 
Worships  Fedalma  with  so  true  a  love 
That  if  her  silken  robe  were  changed  for  rags, 
And  she  were  driven  out  to  stony  wilds 
Barefoot,  a  scorned  wanderer,  he  Avould  kiss 
Her  ragged  garment's  edge,  and  only  ask 
For  leave  to  be  her  slave.     Digest  that,  friend, 
Or  let  it  lie  upon  thee  as  a  weight 
To  check  light  thinking  of  Fedalma. 

LOPEZ. 

I? 

I  think  no  harm  of  her;  I  thank  the  saints 
I  wear  a  sword  and  peddle  not  in  thinking. 
'Tis  Father  Marcos  says  she'll  not  confess 
And  loves  not  holy  water;  says  her  blood 
Is  infidel;  says  the  Duke's  wedding  her 
Is  union  of  light  wjth  darkness. 


312  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

JUAN. 


Tush! 


FNow  Juan — who  by  snatches  touched  his  lute 

With  soft  arpeggio,  like  a  whispered  dream 

Of  sleeping  music,  while  he  spoke  of  love — 

In  jesting  anger  at  the  soldier's  talk 

Thrummed  loud  and  fast,  then  faster  and  more  loud, 

Till,  as  he  answered  "  Tush!"  he  struck  a  chord 

Sudden  as  whip-crack  close  by  Lopez'  ear. 

Mine  host  and  Blasco  smiled,  the  mastiff  barked, 

Roldan  looked  up  and  Annibal  looked  down, 

Cautiously  neutral  in  so  new  a  case: 

The  boy  raised  longing,  listening  eyes  that  seemed 

An  exiled  spirit's  waiting  in  strained  hope 

Of  voices  coming  from  the  distant  land. 

But  Lopez  bore  the  assault  like  any  rock: 

Tliat  was  not  what  he  drew  his  sword  at — he! 

He  spoke  with  neck  erect.] 

LOPEZ. 

If  that's  a  hint 

The  company  should  ask  thee  for  a  song, 
Sing,  then! 

HOST. 

Ay,  Juan,  sing,  and  jar  no  more. 
Something  brand  new.    Thou'rt  wont  to  make  my  ear 
A  test  of  novelties.     Hast  thou  aught  fresh  ? 

JUAN. 

As  fresh  as  rain-drops.     Here's  a  Cancion 
Springs  like  a  tiny  mushroom  delicate 
Out  of  the  priest's  foul  scandal  of  Fedalma, 

[He  preluded  with  querying  intervals, 
Rising,  then  falling  just  a  semitone, 
In  minor  cadence — sound  with  poised  wing 
Hovering  and  quivering  toward  the  needed  fall. 
Then  in  a  voice  that  shook  the  willing  air 
With  masculine  vibration  sang  this  song; 


THE 


.-L'AM-il    tr\l'SY.  313 


Should  I  long  that  dark  were  fair  ? 

Say,  0  Song  ! 

Lacks  my  love  aught,  that  I  should  long  f 

Dark  the  night,  with  breath  all  flow'rs, 
And  tender  broken  voice  that  fills 
With  ravishment  the  listening  hours: 
Whisperings,  wooings, 
Liquid  ripples  and  soft  ring-dove  cooings 
In  low-toned  rhythm  that  love's  aching  stills. 
Dark  the  night, 
Yet  is  she  bright, 

For  in  her  dark  she  brings  the  mystic  star, 
Trembling  yet  strong,  as  is  the  voice  of  love, 
From  some  unknown  afar. 
0  radiant  dark  !  0  darkly-fostered  ray  ! 
Thou  hast  a  joy  too  deep  for  shallow  Day. 

While  Juan  sang,  all  round  the  tavern  court 

Gathered  a  constellation  of  black  eyes. 

Fat  Lola  leaned  upon  the  balcony 

With  arms  that  might  have  pillowed  Hercules 

(Who  built,  'tis  known,  the  mightiest  Spanish  towns); 

Thin  Alda's  face,  sad  as  a  wasted  passion, 

Leaned  o'er  the  nodding  baby's;  'twixt  the  rails 

The  little  Pepe  showed  his  two  black  beads, 

His  flat-ringed  hair  and  small  Semitic  nose, 

Complete  and  tiny  as  a  new-born  minnow; 

Patting  his  head  and  holding  in  her  arms 

The  baby  senior,  stood  Lorenzo's  wife 

All  negligent,  her  kerchief  discomposed 

By  little  clutches,  woman's  coquetry 

Quite  turned  to  mother's  cares  and  sweet  content. 

These  on  the  balcony,  while  at  the  door 

Gazed  the  lank  boys  and  lazy-shouldered  men. 

'Tis  likely  too  the  rats  and  insects  peeped, 

Being  Southern  Spanish  ready  for  a  lounge. 

The  singer  smiled,  as  doubtless  Orpheus  smiled, 

To  see  the  animals  both  great  and  small, 

The  mountainous  elephant  and  scampering  mouse, 

Held  by  the  ears  in  decent  audience; 

Then,  when  mine  host  desired  the  strain  once  more, 

He  fell  to  preluding  with  rhythmic  change 

Of  notes  recurrent,  soft  as  pattering  drops 

Th.-it.  fall  from  off  the  eaves  in  fairy  dance 


314  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

When  clouds  are  breaking;  till  at  measured  pause 
He  struck  with  strength,  in  rare  responsive  chords.] 

HOST. 

Come,  then,  a  gayer  ballad,  if  thou  wilt: 

I  quarrel  not  with  change.     What  say  you,  Captain? 

LOPEZ. 

All's  one  to  me.     I  note  no  change  of  tune, 
Not  I,  save  in  the  ring  of  horses'  hoofs, 
Or  in  the  drums  and  trumpets  when  they  call 
To  action  or  retreat.     I  ne'er  could  see 
The  good  of  singing. 

BLASCO. 

Why,  it  passes  time — 

Saves  you  from  getting  over-wise:  that's  good. 
For,  look  you,  fools  are  merry  here  below, 
Yet  they  will  go  to  heaven  all  the  same, 
Having  the  sacraments;  and,  look  you,  heaven 
Is  a  long  holiday,  and  solid  men, 
Used  to  much  business,  might  be  ill  at  ease 
Not  liking  play.     And  so,  in  traveling, 
I  shape  myself  betimes  to  idleness 
And  take  fools'  pleasures 

HOST. 

Hark,  the  song  begins! 
JUAN  (sings}. 

Maiden,  crowned  with  glossy  blackness, 

Lithe  as  panther  forest-roaming, 
Long-armed  naiad,  ivhen  she  dances, 

On  a  stream  of  ether  floating — 

Bright,  0  bright  Pedalma  ! 

Form  all  curves  like  softness  drifted, 
Wave-kissed  marble  roundly  dimpling. 

Far-off  inuxic  xlou-ly  winged, 
Genii  y  rising,  gently  sinking- 
Bright,  0  bright  Fed  alma  ! 

Pure  as  rain-tear  on  a  rose-leaf, 

Cloud  high-born  in  noonday  spotless. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  315 

Sudden  perfect  as  the  dew-bead, 
Gem  of  earth  and  sky  begotten — 

Bright,  0  bright  Fedalma! 

Beauty  has  no  mortal  father, 

Holy  light  her  form  engendered 
Out  of  tremor,  yearning,  gladness, 

Presage  sweet  and  joy  remembered — 
Child  of  Light,  Fedalma! 

BLASCO. 

Faith,  a  good  song,  sung  to  a  stirring  tune. 
I  like  the  words  returning  in  a  round; 
It  gives  a  sort  of  sense.     Another  such! 

HOLD  AN  (rising). 

Sirs,  you  will  hear  my  boy.     "Pis  very  hard 
"When  gentles  -sing  for  naught  to  all  the  town. 
How  can  a  poor  man  live?    And  now  'tis  time 
I  go  to  the  Pla9a — who  will  give  me  pence 
When  he  can  hear  hidalgos  and  give  naught? 

JtTAK. 

True,  friend.     Be  pacified.     I'll  sing  no  more. 
Go  thou,  and  we  will  follow.     Never  fear. 
My  voice  is  common  as  the  ivy-leaves, 
Plucked  in  all  seasons — bears  no  price;  thy  boy's 
Is  like  the  almond  blossoms.     Ah,  he's  lame! 

HOST. 

Load  him  not  heavily.  Here,  Pedro!  help. 
Go  with  them  to  the  Plaga,  take  the  hoops. 
The  sights  will  pay  thee. 

BLASCO. 

I'll  be  there  anon, 

And  set  the  fashion  with  a  good  white  coin. 
But  let  us  see  as  well  as  hear. 


Rome  trioks.  a  dance. 


HOST. 

Ay,  prithee. 


316  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

BLASCO. 

Yes,  'tis  more  rational. 

ROLDAN  (turning  round  with  the  bundle  and  monkey  on 
his  shoulders). 

You  shall  see  all,  sirs.     There's  no  man  in  Spain 
Knows  his  art  better.     I've  a  twinging  knee 
Oft  hinders  dancing,  and  the  boy  is  lame. 
But  no  man's  monkey  has  more  tricks  than  mine. 

[At  this  high  praise  the  gloomy  Annibal, 

Mournful  professor  of  high  drollery, 

Seemed  to  look  gloomier,  and  the  little  troop 

Went  slowly  out,  escorted  from  the  door 

By  all  the  idlers.     From  the  balcony 

Slowly  subsided  the  black  radiance 

Of  aga.te  eyes,  and  broke  in  chattering  sounds, 

Coaxings  and  trampings,  and  the  small  hoarse  squeak 

Of  Pepe's  reed.     And  our  group  talked  again.] 

HOST. 

I'll  get  this  juggler,  if  he  quits  him  well, 

An  audience  here  as  choice  as  can  be  lured. 

For  me,  when  a  poor  devil  does  his  best, 

'Tis  my  delight  to  soothe  his  soul  with  praise. 

What  chough  the  best  be  bad?  remains  the  good 

Of  throwing  food  to  a  lean  hungry  dog. 

I'd  give  up  the  best  jugglery  in  life 

To  see  a  miserable  juggler  pleased. 

But  that's  my  humor.     Crowds  are  malcontent 

And  cruel  as  the  Holy shall  we  go? 

All  of  us  now  together? 

LOPEZ. 

Well,  not  I. 

I  may  be  there  anon,  but  first  I  go 
To  the  lower  prison.     There  is  strict  command 
That  all  our  gypsy  prisoners  shall  to-night 
Be  lodged  within  the  fort.     They've  forged  enough 
Of  balls  and  bullets — used  up  all  the  metal. 
At  morn  to-morrow  they  must  carry  stones 
Up  the  south  tower.     'Tis  a  fine  stalwart  band, 
Fit  for  the  hardest  tasks.     Some  say,  the  queen 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  317 

Would  have  the  gypsies  banished  with  the  Jews. 
Some  say,  'twere  better  harness  them  for  work. 
They'd  feed  on  any  filth  and  save  the  Spaniard. 
Some  say — but  I  must  go.     'Twill  soon  be  time 
To  head  the  escort.     We  shall  meet  again. 

BLASCO. 

Go,  sir,  with  God  (exit  Lopez).     A  very  proper  man, 

And  soldierly.     But,  for  this  banishment 

Some  men  are  hot  on,  it  ill  pleases  me. 

The  Jews,  now  (sirs,  if  any  Christian  here 

Had  Jews  for  ancestors,  I  blame  him  not; 

We  cannot  all  be  Goths  of  Aragon) — 

Jews  are  not  fit  for  heaven,  but  on  earth 

They  are  most  useful.     'Tis  the  same  with  mules, 

Horses,  or  oxen,  or  with  any  pig 

Except  St.  Anthony's.     They  are  useful  here 

(The  Jews,  I  mean)  though  they  may  go  to  hell. 

And,  look  you,  useful  sins — why  Providence 

Sends  Jews  to  do  'em,  saving  Christian  souls. 

The  very  Gypsies,  curbed  and  harnessed  well, 

Would  make  draft  cattle,  feed  on  vermin  too, 

Cost  less  than  grazing  brutes,  and  turn  bad  food 

To  handsome  carcasses;  sweat  at  the  forge 

For  little  wages,  and  well  drilled  and  flogged 

Might  work  like  slaves,  some  Spaniards  looking  on. 

I  deal  in  plate,  and  am  no  priest  to  say 

What  God  may  mean,  save  when  he  means  plain  sense; 

But  when  he  sent  the  Gypsies  wandering 

In  punishment  because  they  sheltered  not 

Our  Lady  and  St.  Joseph  (and  no  doubt 

Stole  the  small  ass  they  fled  with  into  Egypt), 

Why  send  them  here?    'Tis  plain  he  saw  the  use 

They'd  be  to  Spaniards.     Shall  we  banish  them, 

And  tell  God  we  know  better?    'Tis  a  sin. 

They  talk  of  vermin;  but,  sirs;  vermin  large 

Were  inade  to  eat  the  small,  or  else  to  eat 

The  noxious  rubbish,  and  picked  Gypsy  men 

Might  serve  in  war  to  climb,  be  killed,  and  fall 

To  make  an  easy  ladder.     Once  I  saw 

A  Gypsy  sorcerer,  at  a  spring  and  grasp 

Kill  one  who  came  to  seize  him:  talk  of  strength! 

Nay,  swiftness  too,  for  while  we  crossed  ourselves 

He  vanished  like — say,  like 


318  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

JUAN. 

A  swift  black  snake, 
Or  like  a  living  arrow  fledged  with  will. 

BLASCO. 
Why,  did  you  see  him,  pray? 

JUAN. 

Not  then,  but  now, 
As  painters  see  the  many  in  the  one. 
We  have  a  Gypsy  in  Bedmar  whose  frame 
Nature  compacted  with  such  fine  selection, 
'T would  yield  a  dozen  types:  all  Spanish  knights, 
From  him  who  slew  Rolando  at  the  pass 
Up  to  the  mighty  Cid;  all  deities, 
Thronging  Olympus  in  fine  attitudes; 
Or  all  hell's  heroes  whom  the  poet  saw 
Tremble  like  lions,  writhe  like  demigods. 

HOST. 

Pause  not  yet,  Juan-— more  hyperbole! 
Shoot  upward  still  and  flare  in  meteors 
Before  thou  sink  to  earth  in  dull  brown  fact. 

BLASCO. 

Nay,  give  me  fact,  high  shooting  suits  not  me. 
I  never  stare  to  look  for  soaring  larks. 
What  is  this  Gypsy? 

HOST. 

Chieftain  of  a  band, 

The  Moor's  allies,  whom  full  a  month  ago 
Our  Duke  surprised  and  brought  us  captives  home. 
He  needed  smiths,  and  doubtless  the  brave  Moor 
Has  missed  some  useful  scouts  and  archers  too. 
Juan's  fantastic  pleasure  is  to  watch 
These  Gypsies  forging,  and  to  hold  discourse 
With  this  great  chief,  whom  he  transforms  at  will 
To  sage  or  -warrior,  and  like  the  sun 
Plays  daily  at  fallacious  alchemy, 
Turns  sand  to  gold  and  dewy  spider-webs 
To  myriad  rainbows.     Still  the  sand  is  sand, 


Tin:  SPANISH  <;YPSN  .  :;i.:» 

And  still  in  sober  shade  you  see  the  \veb. 
Tis  .so,  I'll  wager,  with  this  Gypsy  oiiief — 
A  piece  of  stalwart  cunning,  nothing  more. 

JUAN. 

No!    My  invention  had  been  all  too  poor 

To  frame  this  Zarca  as  I  saw  him  first. 

'Twas  when  they  stripped  him.    In  his  chieftain's  gear, 

Amiflst  his  men  he  seemed  a  royal  barb 

Followed  by  wild-maned  Andalusian  colts, 

He  had  a  necklace  of  a  strange  device 

In  finest  gold  of  unknown  workmanship, 

But  delicate  as  "Moorish,  fit  to  kiss 

Fedalma's  neck,  and  play  in  shadows  there. 

He  wore  fine  mail,  a  rich-wrought  sword  and  belt, 

And  on  his  surcoat  black  a  broidered  torch, 

A  pine-branch  flaming,  grasped  by  two  dark  hands. 

But  when  they  stripped  him  of  his  ornaments 

It  was  'the  baubles  lost  their  grace,  not  he. 

His  eyes,  his  mouth,  his  nostril,  all  inspired 

With  scorn  that  mastered  utterance  of  scorn, 

With  power  to  check  all  rage  until  it  turned 

To  ordered  force,  unleashed  on  chosen  prey — 

It  seemed  the  soul  within  him  made  his  limbs 

And  made  them  grand.     The  baubles  were  well  gone. 

He  stood  the  more  a  king,  when  bared  to  man. 

BLASCO. 

Maybe.     But  nakedness  is  bad  for  trade, 
And  is  not  decent.     Well-wrought  metal,  sir, 
Is  not  si  bauble.     Had  you  seen  the  camp, 
The  royal  camp  at  Velez  Malaga, 
Ponce  de  Leon  and  the  other  dukes, 
The  king  himself  and  all  his  thousand  knights 
For  body-guard,  'twould  not  have  left  you  breath 
To  praise  a  Gypsy  thus.     A  man's  a  man; 
But  when  you  see  a  king,  you  see  the  work 
Of  many  thousand  men.     King  Ferdinand 
Bears  a  fine  presence,  and  hath  proper  limbs; 
But  what  though  he  were  shrunken  as  a  relic? 
You'd  see  the  gold  and  gems  that  cased  him  o'er, 
And  all  the  pages  round  him  in  brocade, 
And  all  the  lords,  themselves  a  sort  of  kings, 
Doing  him  reverence.     That  strikes  an  awe 


320  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Into  a  common  man — especially 
A  judge  of  plate. 

HOST. 

Faith,  very  wisely  said. 
Purge  thy  speech,  Juan.     It  is  over-full 
Of  this  same  Gypsy.     Praise  the  Catholic  King. 
And  come  now,  let  us  see  the  juggler's  skill. 

The  Plapa  Santiago. 

'Tis  daylight  still,  but  now  the  golden  cross 

Uplifted  by  the  angel  on  the  dome. 

Stands  rayless  in  calm  color  clear-defined 

Against  the  northern  blue;  from  turrets  high 

The  flitting  splendor  sinks  with  folded  wing 

Dark-hid  till  morning,  and  the  battlements 

"Wear  soft  relenting  whiteness  mellowed  o'er 

By  summers  generous  and  winters  bland.     . 

Now  in  the  east  the  distance  casts  its  veil 

And  gazes  with  a  deepening  earnestness. 

The  old  rain-fretted  mountains  in  their  robes 

Of  shadow-broken  gray;  the  rounded  hills 

Reddened  with  blood  of  Titans,  whose  huge  limbs, 

Entombed  within,  feed  full  the  hardy  flesh 

Of  cactus  green  and  blue  broad-sworded  aloes; 

The  cypress  soaring  black  above  the  lines 

Of  white  court-walls;  the  jointed  sugar-canes 

Pale-golden  with  their  feathers  motionless 

In  the  warm  quiet: — all  thought-teaching  form 

Utters  itself  in  firm  unshimmering  hues. 

For  the  great  rock  has  screened  the  westering  sun 

That  still  on  plains  beyond  streams  vaporous  gold 

Among  the  branches;  and  within  Bedmar 

Has  come  the  time  of  sweet  serenity 

When  color  glows  imglittering,  and  the  soul 

Of  visible  things  shows  silent  happiness, 

As  that  of  lovers  trusting  though  apart. 

The  ripe-cheeked  fruits,  the  crimson-petaled  flowers; 

The  winged  life  that  pausing  seems  a  gem 

Cunningly  carven  on  the  dark  green  leaf; 

The  face  of  man  with  hues  supremely  blent 

To  difference  fine  as  of  a  voice  'mid  sounds: — 

Each  lovely  light-dipped  thing  seems  to  emerge 

Flushed  gravely  from  baptismal  sacrament. 


TIM.    M'V.VISII    (.YI'SY.  321. 

All  beauteous  existence  rests,  yet  wakes, 
Lies  still,  yet  conscious,  with  clear  open  eyes 
And  gentle  breath  and  mild  suffused  joy. 
'Tis  day,  but  day  that  falls  like  melody 
Repeated  on  a  string  with  graver  tones — 
Tones  such  as  linger  in  a  long  farewell. 

The  Pla9a  widens  in  the  passive  air — 
The  Plac,a  Santiago,  where  the  church, 
A  mosque  converted,  shows  an  eyeless  face 
Red-checkered,  faded,  doing  penance  still — 
Bearing  with  Moorish  arch  the  imaged  saint, 
Apostle,  baron,  Spanish  warrior, 
Whose  charger's  hoofs  trample  the  turbaued  dead, 
Whose  banner  with  the  Cross,  the  bloody  sword 
Flashes  athwart  the  Moslem's  glazing  eye, 
And  mocks  his  trust  in  Allah  who  forsakes. 
Up  to  the  church  the  Plaqa  gently  slopes, 
In  shape  most  like  the  pious  palmer's  shell, 
Girdled  with  low  white  houses;  high  above 
Tower  the  strong  fortress  and  sharp-angled  wall 
And  Avell-flanked  castle  gate.     From  o'er  the  roofs, 
And  from  the  shadowed  patios  cool,  there  spreads 
The  breath  of  flowers  and  aromatic  leaves 
Soothing  the  sense  with  bliss  indefinite —  * 

A  baseless  hope,  a  glad  presentiment, 
That  curves  the  lip  more  softly,  fills  the  eye 
With  more  indulgent  beam.     And  so  it  soothes, 
So  gently  sways  the  pulses  of  the  crowd 
Who  make  a  zone  about  the  central  spot 
Chosen  by  Roldan  for  his  theatre. 
Maids  with  arched  eyebrows,  delicate-penciled,  dark, 
Fold  their  round  arms  below  the  kerchief  full; 
Men  shoulder  little  girls;  and  grandames  gray, 
But  muscular  still,  hold  babies  on  their  arms; 
While  mothers  keep  the  stout-legged  boys  in  front 
Against  their  skirts,  as  old  Greek  pictures  show 
The  Glorious  Mother  with  the  Boy  divine. 
Youths  keep  the  places  for  themselves,  and  roll 
Large  lazy  eyes,  and  call  recumbent  dogs 
(For  reasons  deep  below  the  reach  of  thought). 
The  old  men  cough  with  purpose,  wish  to  hint 
Wisdom  within  that  cheapens  jugglery, 
Maintain  a  neutral  air,  and  knit  their  brows 
In  observation.     None  are  quarrelsome. 
21 


322  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Noisy,  or  very  merry;  for  their  blood 

Moves  slowly  into  fervor — they  rejoice 

Like  those  dark  birds  that  sweep  with  heavy  wing, 

Cheering  their  mates  with  melancholy  cries. 

But  now  the  gilded  balls  begin  to  play 
In  rhythmic  numbers,  ruled  by  practice  fine 
Of  eye  and  muscle;  all  the  juggler's  form 
Consents  harmonious  in  swift-gliding  change, 
Easily  forward  stretched  or  backward  bent 
With  lightest  step  and  movement  circular 
Round  a  fixed  point;  'tis  not  the  old  Eoldan  now, 
The  dull,  hard,  weary,  miserable  man, 
The  soul  all  parched  to  languid  appetite 
And  memory  of  desire;  'tis  wondrous  force 
That  moves  in  combination  multiform 
Toward  conscious  ends:  'tis  Roldan  glorious, 
Holding  all  eyes  like  any  meteor, 
King  of  the  moment  save  when  Annibal 
Divides  the  scene  and  plays  the  comic  part, 
Gazing  with  blinking  glances  up  and  down 
Dancing  and  throwing  naught  and  catching  it, 
With  mimicry  as  merry  as  the  tasks 
Of  penance-working  shades  in  Tartarus. 
< 

Pablo  stands  passive,  and  a  space  apart, 
Holding  a  viol,  waiting  for  command. 
Music  must  not  be  wasted,  but  must  rise 
As  needed  climax;  and  the  audience 
Is  growing  with  late  comers.     Juan  now, 
And  the  familiar  host,  with  Blasco  broad, 
Find  way  made  gladly  to  the  inmost  round 
Studded  with  heads.     Lorenzo  knits  the  crowd 
•Into  one  family  by  showing  all 
Good-will  and  recognition.     Juan  casts 
His  large  and  rapid-measuring  glance  around; 
But- — with  faint  quivering,  transient  as  a  breath 
Shaking  a  flame — his  eyes  make  sudden  pause 
Where  by  the  jutting  angle  of  a  street 
Castle-ward  leading,  stands  a  female  form, 
A  kerchief  pale  square-drooping  o'er  the  brow, 
About  her  shoulders  dim  brown  serge — in  garb 
Most  like  a  peasant  woman  from  the  vale, 
Who  might  have  lingered  after  marketing 
To  see  the  show.     What  thrill  mysterious, 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  323 

Ray-borne  from  orb  to  orb  of  conscious  eyes, 

The  swift  observing  sweep  of  Juan's  glance 

Arrests  an  instant,  then  with  prompting  fresh 

Diverts  it  lastingly?     He  turns  at  once 

To  watcli  the  gilded  balls,  and  nod  and  smile 

At  little  round  Pepita,  blondest  maid 

In  all  Bedimir — Pepita,  fair  yet  flecked, 

Saucy  of  lip  and  nose,  of  hair  as  red 

As  breasts  of  robins  stepping  on  the  snow — 

Who  stands  in  front  with  little  tapping  feet, 

And  baby-dimpled  hands  that  hide  enclosed 

Those  sleeping  crickets,  the  dark  castanets. 

But  soon  the  gilded  balls  have  ceased  to  play 

And  Annibal  is  leaping  through  the  hoops, 

That  turn  to  twelve,  meeting  him  as  he  flies 

In  the  swift  circle.     Shuddering  he  leaps, 

But  with  each  spring  flies  swift  and  swifter  still 

Ta  loud  and  louder  shouts,  while  the  great  hoops 

Are  changed  to  smaller.     Now  the  crowd  is  fired. 

The  motion  swift,  the  living  victim  urged. 

The  imminent  failure  and  repeated  scape 

Hurry  all  pulses  and  intoxicate 

With  subtle  wine  of  passion  many-mixed. 

'Tis  all  about  a  monkey  leaping  hard 

Till  near  to  gasping;  but  it  serves  as  well 

As  the  great  circus  or  arena  dire, 

Where  these  are  lacking.     Roldan  cautiously 

Slackens  the  leaps  and  lays  the  hoops  to  rest, 

And  Annibal  retires  with  reeling  brain 

And  backward  stagger — pity,  he  could  not  smile! 

Now  Roldan  spreads  his  carpet,  now  he  shows 

Strange  metamorphoses:  the  pebble  black 

Changes  to  whitest  egg  within  his  hand; 

A  staring  rabbit,  with  retreating  ears, 

Is  swallowed  by  the  air  and  vanishes; 

He  tells  men's  thoughts  about  the  shaken  dice, 

Their  secret  choosings;  makes  the  white  beans  pass 

With  causeless  act  sublime  from  cup  to  cup 

Turned  empty  on  the  ground — diablerie 

That- pales  the  girls  and  puzzles  all  the  boys: 

These  tricks  are  samples,  hinting  to  the  town 

Roldan's  great  mastery.     He  tumbles  next, 

And  Annibal  is  called  to  mock  each  feat 

With  arduous  comicalitv  and  save 


324  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

By  rule  romantic  the  great  public  mind 
(And  Roldan's  body)  from  too  serious  strain. 

But  with  the  tumbling,  lest  the  feats  should  fail 

And  so  need  veiling  in  a  haze  of  sound, 

Pablo  awakes  the  viol  and  the  bow — 

The  masculine  bow  that  draws  the  woman's  heart 

From  out  the  strings,  and  makes  them  cry,  yearn,  plead, 

Tremble,  exult,  with  mystic  union 

Of  joy  acute  and  tender  suffering. 

To  play  the  viol  and  discreetly  mix 

Alternate  with  the  bow's  keen  biting  tones 

The  throb  responsive  to  the  finger's  touch, 

Was  rarest  skill  that  Pablo  half  had  caught 

From  an  old  blind  and  wandering  Catalan; 

The  other  half  was  rather  heritage 

From  treasure  stored  by  generations  past 

In  winding  chambers  of  receptive  sense. 

The  winge"d  sounds  exalt  the  thick -pressed  crowd 

With  a  new  pulse  in  common,  blending  all 

The  gazing  life  into  one  larger  soul 

With  dimly  widened  consciousness:  as  waves 

In  heightened  movement  tell  of  waves  far  off. 

And  the  light  changes;  westward  stationed  clouds, 

The  sun's  ranged  outposts,  luminous  message  spread, 

Rousing  quiescent  things  to  doff  their  shade 

And  show  themselves  as  added  audience. 

Now  Pablo,  letting  fall  the  eager  bow, 

Solicits  softer  murmurs  from  the  strings, 

And  now  above  them  pours  a  wondrous  voice 

(Such  as  Greek  reapers  heard  in  Sicily) 

With  wounding  rapture  in  it,  like  love's  arrows; 

And  clear  upon  clear  air  as  colored  gems 

Dropped  in  a  crystal  cup  of  water  pure, 

Fall  words  of  sadness,  simple,  lyrical: 

Spring  comes  hither, 

Buds  the  rose  ; 
Roses  ivither, 

Sweet  spring  goes. 
Ojala,  would  she  carry  me! 

Summer  soars — 
Wide-winged  day 


T1IE    Sl'ANiSH    GYPSY.  325 

White  light  pours, 

/•V/VN  «  way. 
Ojala,  would  he  carry  me  ! 

Soft  winds  How, 

II  ixtward  born, 
Onward  go 

Toward  tlie  morn. 
Ojala,  would  they  carry  me  f 


Sweet  birds  sing 

O'er  the  (/raves, 
Then  take  iving 


O'er  the  waves. 
Ojala,  would  they  carry  me  f 

•  I  -1        1          At          I    1  •         1  « 


When  the  voice  paused  and  left  the  viol's  note 
To  plead  forsaken,  'twas  as  when  a  cloud 
Hiding  the  sun,  makes  all  the  leaves  and  flowers 
Shiver.     But  when  with  measured  change  the  strings 
Had  taught  regret  new  longing,  clear  again,    , 
Welcome  as  hope  recovered,  flowed  the  voice. 

Warm  whispering  through  the  slender  olive  leaves 
Came  to  me  a  gentle  sound, 
Whispering  of  a  secret  found 

In  the  cli'nr  sunshine  'mid  the  golden  sheaves: 

Saul  it  ft/*  xliTjiiitij  for  me  in  the  morn, 
Catted  it  gladness,  called  It  joy, 
Drew  me  on  —  "  Come  hither,  boy" — 

To  where  the  blue  wings  rested  on  the  corn. 

I  thought  the  gentle  sound  had  whispered  true — 
Thought  the  little  hearf/t  mine, 
Leaned  to  clutch  the  tit  ing  divine, 

And  saw  the  blue  icings  melt  within  the  blue. 

The  long  notes  linger  on  the  trembling  air, 
With  subtle  penetration  enter  all 
The  myriad  corridors  of  the  passionate  soul, 
tge-like  spread,  and  answering  action  rouse. 

Not  angular  jig.s  ihut  warm  the  chilly  limbs 
In  hoary  northern  mists,  but  action  curved 
To  soft  andante  strains  pitched  plaintively. 
Vibrations  sympathetic  stir  all  limbs: 
Old  men  live  backward  in  their  dancing  prime. 


326  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

And  move  in  memory;  small  legs  and  arms 
With  pleasant  agitation  purposeless 
Go  up  and  down  like  pretty  fruits  in  gales. 
All  long  in  common  for  the  expressive  act 
Yet  wait  for  it;  as -in  the  olden  time 
Men  waited  for  the  bard  to  tell  their  thought. 
"The  dance!  the  dance!"  is  shouted  all  around. 
Now  Pablo  lifts  the  bow.  Pepita  now, 
Keady  as  bird  that  sees  the  sprinkled  corn, 
When  Juan  nods  and  smiles,  puts  forth  her  foot 
And  lifts  her  arm  to  wake  the  castanets. 
Juan  advances,  too,  from  out  the  ring 
And  bends  to  quit  his  lute;  for  now  the  scene 
Is  empty;  Eoldan  weary,  gathers  pence, 
Followed  by  Annibal  with  purse  and  stick. 
The  carpet  lies  a  colored  isle  untrod, 
Inviting  feet:  "  The  dance,  the  dance/'  resounds, 
The  bow  entreats  with  slow  melodic  strain, 
And  all  the  air  with  expectation  yearns. 

Sudden,  with  gliding  motion  like  a  flame 

That  through  dim  vapor  makes  a  path  of  glory, 

A  figure  lithe,  all  white  and  saffron-robed, 

Flashed  right  across  the  circle,  and  now  stood 

With  ripened  arms  uplift  and  regal  head, 

Like  some  tall  flower  whose  dark  and  intense  heart 

Lies  half  within  a  tulip-tinted  cup. 

Juan  stood  fixed  and  pale;  Pepita  stepped 
Backward  within  the  ring:  the  voices  fell 
From  shouts  insistent  to  more  passive  tones 
Half  meaning  welcome,  half  astonishment. 
"Lady  Fedalma! — will  she  dance  for  us?" 

But  she,  sole  swayed  by  impulse  passionate, 

Feeling  all  life  was  music  and  all  eyes 

The  warming  quickening  light  that  music  makes, 

Moved  as,  in  dance  religious,  Miriam, 

When  on  the  Red  Sea  shore  she  raised  her  voice  ' 

And  led  the  chorus  of  the  people's  joy; 

Or  as  the  Trojan  maids  that  reverent  sang 

Watching  the  sorrow-crowned  Hecuba: 

Moved  in  slow  curves  voluminous,  gradual, 

Feeling  and  action  flowing  into  one, 

Jn  Eden's  natural  taintless  marrjage-bondj 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  32? 

Ardently  modest,  sensuously  pure, 

With  young  delight  that  wonders  at  itself 

And  throbs  as  innocent  as  opening  flowers, 

Knowing  not  comment — soilless,  beautiful. 

The  spirit  in  her  gravely  glowing  face 

With  sweet  community  informs  her  limbs, 

Filling  their  fine  gradation  with  the  breath 

Of  virgin  majesty;  as  full  vowoled  words 

Are  new  impregnate  with  the  master's  thought. 

Even  the  chance-strayed  delicate  tendrils  black, 

That  backward  'scape  from  out  her  wreathing  hair — 

Even  the  pliant  folds  that  cling  transverse 

When  with  obliquely  soaring  bend  altern 

She  seems  a  goddess  quitting  earth  again — 

Gather  expression — a  soft  undertone 

And  resonance  exquisite  from  the  grand  chord 

Of  her  harmoniously  bodied  soul. 

At  first  a  reverential  silence  guards 

The  eager  senses  of  the  gazing  crowd: 

They  hold  their  breath,  and  live  by  seeing  her. 

But  soon  the  admiring  tension  finds  relief — 

Sighs  of  delight,  applausive  murmurs  low, 

And  stirrings  gentle  as  of  eared  corn 

Or  seed-bent  grasses,  when  the  ocean's  breath 

Spreads  landward.     Even  Juan  is  impelled 

By  the  swift-traveling  movement:  fear  and  doubt 

Give  way  before  the  hurrying  energy; 

He  takes  his  lute  and  strikes  in  fellowship, 

Filling  more  full  the  rill  of  melody 

Raised  fffer  and  anon  to  clearest  flood 

By  Pablo's  voice,  that  dies  awny  too  soon, 

Like  the  sweet  blackbird's  fragmentary  chant, 

Yet  wakes  again,  with  varying  rise  and  fall, 

In  songs  that  seem  emergent  memories 

Prompting  brief  utterance — little  cancions 

And  villancicos,  Andalusia-born. 

PABLO  (sings). 

It  was  in  the  prime 

Of  the  sweet  Spring-time. 

In  the  U'HtH'f'*  throat 

Trembled  UK-  lace-note, 
And  the  lore  stirred  air 


328  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Thrilled  the  blossoms  there. 
Little  shadows  danced 

Each  a  tiny  elf, 
Happy  in  large  light 

And  the  thinnest  self. 

It  was  but  a  minute 

In  a  far-off  Spring, 

But  each  gentle  thing, 
Sweetly -woo  ing  linnet, 
Soft-thrilled  hawthorn  tree, 

Happy  shadowy  elf 
With  the  thinnest  self. 

Live  still  on  in  me. 
0  the  sweet,  sweet  prime 
Of  the  past  Spring-time  ! 

And  still  the  light  is  changing:  high  above 
Float  soft  pink  clouds;  others  with  deeper  flush 
Stretch  like  flamingos  bending  toward  the  south. 
Comes  a  more  solemn  brilliance  o'er  the  sky 
A  meaning  more  intense  upon  the  air — 
The  inspiration  of  the  dying  day. 
And  Juan  now,  when  Pablo's  notes  subside, 
Soothes  the  regretful  ear,  and  breaks  the  pause 
With  masculine  voice  in  deep  antiphouy. 

JUAN  (sings). 

Day  is  dying  !    Float,  0  song. 

Down  the  westward  river, 
Requiem  chanting  to  the  Day — 

Day,  the  mighty  Giver. 

Pierced  by  shafts  of  Time  he  bleeds, 

Melted  rubies  sending 
Through  the  river  and  the  sky, 

Earth  and  heaven  blending; 

All  the  long-drawn  earthy  banks 

Up  to  cloud-land  lifting: 
Slow  betiref/i  tltf/n  drift**  tit?  *wan, 
'Twixt  tti'o  Iti'tiri'ii*  drifting. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Wings  half  open,  like  aflow'r 

Inly  deeper  flushing, 
Neck  and  breast  as  virgin's  pure — 

Virgin  proudly  blushing. 

Day  is  dying  !    Float,  0  swan, 

Down  the  ruby  river; 
Follow,  song,  in  requiem 

To  the  mighty  Giver. 

The  exquisite  hour,  the  ardor  of  the  crowd, 

The  strains  more  plenteous,  and  the  gathering  migh 

Of  action  passionate  where  no  effort  is, 

But  self's  poor  gates  open  to  rushing  power 

That  blends  the  inward  ebb  and  outward  vast — 

All  gathering  influences  culminate 

And  urge  Fedalma.     Earth  and  heaven  seem  one, 

Life  a  glad  trembling  on  the  outer  edge 

Of  unknown  rapture.     Swifter  now  she  moves, 

Filling  the  measure  with  a  double  beat 

And  widening  circle;  now  she  seems  to  glow 

With  more  declared  presence,  glorified. 

Circling,  she  lightly  bends  and  lifts  on  high 

The  multitudinous-sounding  tambourine, 

And  makes  it  ring  and  boom,  then  lifts  it  higher 

Stretching  her  left  arm  beauteous;  now  the  crowd 

Exultant  shouts,  forgetting  poverty 

In  the  rich  moment  of  possessing  her. 

But  sudden,  at  one  point,  the  exultant  throng 
Is  pushed  and  hustled,  and  then  thrust  apart; 
Something  approaches — something  cuts  the  ring 
Of  jubilant  idlers — startling  as  a  streak 
From  alien  wounds  across  the  blooming  flesh 
Of  careless  sporting  childhood.     'Tis  the  band 
Of  Gypsy  prisoners.     Soldiers  lead  the  van 
And  make  sparse  flanking  guard,  aloof  surveyed 
Bv  gallant  Lopez,  stringent  in  command. 
The  Gypsies  chained  in  couples,  all  save  one, 
Walk  in  dark  file  with  grand  bare  legs  and  arms 
And  savage  melancholy  in  their  eyes 
That  star-like  gleam  from  out  black  clouds  of  hair; 
Now  they  are  full  in  sight;  and  now  they  stretch 
Right  to  the  center  of  the  open  space. 
l-Vdalma  n<»\v,  with  gentle  wheeling  sweep 


330  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Returning,  like  the  loveliest  of  the  Hours 
Strayed  from  her  sisters,  truant  lingering, 
Faces  again  the  center,  swings  again 

The  unlifted  tambourine 

When  lo!  with  sound 
Stupendous  throbbing,  solemn  as  a  voice 
Sent  by  the  invisible  choir  of  all  the  dead, 
Tolls  the  great  passing  bell  that  calls  to  prayer 
For  souls  departed:  at  the  mighty  beat 
It  seems  the  light  sinks  awe-struck — 'tis  the  note 
Of  the  sun's  burial;  speech  and  action  pause; 
Religious  silence  and  the  holy  sign 
Of  everlasting  memories  (the  sign 
Of  death  that  turned  to  more  diffusive  life) 
Pass  o'er  the  Plaqa.     Little  children  gaze 
With  lips  apart,  and  feel  the  unknown  god; 
And  the  most  men  and  women  pray.     Not  all. 
The  soldiers  pray;  the  Gypsies  stand  unmoved 
As  pagan  statues  with  proud  level  gaze. 
But  he  who  wears  a  solitary  chain 
Heading  the  file,  has  turned  to  face  Fedalma. 
She  motionless,  with  arm  uplifted,  guards 
The  tambourine  aloft  (lest,  sudden-lowered, 
Its  trivial  jingle  mar  the  duteous  pause), 
Reveres  the  general  prayer,  but  prays  not,  stands 
With  level  glance  meeting  the  Gypsy's  eyes, 
That  seem  to  her  the  sadness  of  the  world 
Rebuking  her,  the  great  bell's  hidden  thought 
Now  first  unveiled — the  sorrows  unredeemed 
Of  races  outcast,  scorned,  and  wandering. 
Why  does  he  look  at  her?  why  she  at  him? 
As  if  the  meeting  light  between  their  eyes 
Made  permanent  union?    His  deep-knit  brow, 
Inflated  nostril,  scornful  lip  compressed, 
Seem  a  dark  hieroglyph  of  coming  fate 
Written  before  her.     Father  Isidor 
Had  terrible  eyes  and  was  her  ememy; 
She  knew  it  and  defied  him;  all  her  soul 
Rounded  and  hardened  in  its  separateness 
When  they  encountered.     But  this  prisoner — 
This  Gypsy,  passing,  gazing  casually — 
Was  he  her  enemy  too?     She  stood  all  quelled, 
The  impetuous  joy  that  hurried  in  her  veins 
Seemed  backward  rushing  turned  to  chillest  awe, 
Uneasy  wonder,  and  u  vague  self-doubt, 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  331 

The  minute  brief  stretched  measureless,  dream-filled 
By  a  dilated  new-fraught  consciousness. 

Now  it  was  gone;  the  pious  murmur  ceased, 
The  ( lypsies  all  moved  onward  at  command 
And  careless  noises  blent  confusedly. 
But  the  ring  closed  again,  and  many  ears 
Waited  for  Pablo's  music,  many  eyes 
Turned  toward  the  carpet:  it  lay  bare  and  dim, 
Twilight  was  there — the  bright  Fed  alma  gone. 

A  handsome  room  in  the  Castle.     On  a  table  a  rich  jewel- 
casket. 

Silva  had  doffed  his  mail  and  with  it  all 

The  heavier  harness  of  his  warlike  cares. 

He  had  not  seen  Fedalma;  miser-like 

He  hoarded  through  the  hour  a  costlier  joy 

By  longing  oft-repressed.     Now  it  was  earned; 

And  with  observance  wonted  he  would  send 

To  ask  admission.     Spanish  gentlemen 

Who  wooed  fair  dames  of  noble  ancestry 

Did  homage  with  rich  tunics  and  slashed  sleeves 

And  outward-surging  linen's  costly  snow; 

With  broidered  scarf  transverse,  and  rosary 

Handsomely  wrought  to  fit  high-blooded  prayer; 

So  hinting  in  how  deep  respect  they  held 

That  self  they  threw  before  their  lady's  feet. 

And  Silva — that  Fedalma's  rate  should  stand 

No  jot  below  the  highest,  that  her  love 

Might  seem  to  all  the  royal  gift  it  was — 

Turned  every  trifle  in  his  mien  and  garb 

To  scrupulous  language,  uttering  to  the  world 

That  since  she  loved  him  he  went  carefully, 

Bearing  a  tiling  so  precious  in  his  hand. 

A  man  of  high-wrought  strain,  fastidious 

In  his  acceptance,  dreading  all  delight 

That  speedy  dies  and  turns  to  carrion: 

His  senses  much  exacting,  deep  instilled 

With  keen  imagination's  airy  needs; — 

Like  strong-limbed  monsters  studded  o'er  with  eyes, 

Their  hunger  checked  by  overwhelming  vision, 

Or  that  fierce  lion  in  symbolic  dream 

Snatched  from  the  ground  by  wings  and  new-endowed. 

With  a  man's  thought-propelled  relenting  heart. 


332  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Silva  was  both  the  lion  and  the  man; 

First  hesitating  shrank,  then  fiercely  sprang, 

Or  having  sprung,  turned  pallid  at  his  deed 

And  loosed  the  prize,  paying  his  blood  for  naught. 

A  nature  half-transformed,  with  qualities 

That  oft  bewrayed  each  other,  elements 

Not  blent  but  struggling,  breeding  strange  effects, 

Passing  the  reckoning  of  his  friends  or  foes. 

Haughty  and  generous,  grave  and  passionate; 

With  tidal  moments  of  devoutest  awe, 

Sinking  anon  to  farthest  ebb  of  doubt; 

Deliberating  ever,  till  the  string 

Of  a  recurrent  ardor  made  him  rush 

Eight  against  reasons  that  himself  had  drilled 

And  marshaled  painfully.     A  spirit  framed 

Too  proudly  special  for  obedience, 

Too  subtly  pondering  for  mastery: 

Born  of  a  goddess  with  a  mortal  sire, 

Heir  of  flesh-fettered,  weak  divinity, 

Doom-gifted  with  long  resonant  consciousness 

And  perilous  heightening  of  the  sentient  soul. 

But  look  less  curiously:  life  itself 

May  not  express  us  all,  may  leave  the  worst 

And  the  best  too,  like  tunes  in  mechanism 

Never  awaked.     In  various  catalogues 

Objects  stand  variously.     Silva  stands 

As  a  young  Spaniard,  handsome,  noble,  brave, 

With  titles  many,  high  in  pedigree; 

Or,  as  a  nature  quiveringly  poised 

In  reach  of  storms,  whose  qualities  may  turn 

To  murdered  virtues  that  still  walk  as  ghosts 

Within  the  shuddering  soul  and  shriek  remorse; 

Or,  as  a  lover In  the  screening  time 

Of  purple  blossoms,  when  the  petals  crowd 
And  softly  crush  like  cherub  cheeks  in  heaven, 
Who  thinks  of  greenly  withered  fruit  and  worms? 
0  the  warm  southern  spring  is  beauteous! 
And  in  love's  spring  all  good  seems  possible: 
No  threats,  all  promise,  brooklets  ripple  full 
And  bathe  the  rushes,  vicious  crawling  things 
Are  pretty  eggs,  the  sun  shines  graciously 
And  parches  not,  the  silent  rain  beats  warm 
As  childhood's  kisses,  days  are  young  and  grow, 
And  earth  seems  in  its  sweet  beginning  time 
Fresh  made  for  two  who  live  in  Paradise. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  333 

Silva  is  in  love's  spring,  its  freshness  breathed 

Within  his  soul  along  the  dusty  ways 

While  inarching  homeward;  'tis  around  him  now 

As  in  a  garden  fenced  in  for  delight, — 

And  he  may  seek  delight.     Smiling  he  lifts 

A  whistle  from  his  belt,  but  lets  it  fall 

Ere  it  has  reached  his  lips,  jarred  by  the  sound 

Of  usher's  knocking,  and  a  voice  that  craves 

Admission  for  the  Prior  of  San  Domingo. 

PRIOR  (entering}. 

You  look  perturbed,  my  sou.     I  thrust  myself 
Between  you  and  some  beckoning  intent     ^ 
That  wears  a  face  more  smiling  than  my  own. 

DON  SILVA. 

Father,  enough  that  you  are  here.     I  wait, 

As  always,  your  commands — nay,  should  have  sought 

An  early  audience.  .     v 

PRIOR. 

To  give,  I  trust, 
Good  reasons  for  your  change  of  policy? 

DON  SILVA. 
Strong  reasons,  father. 

PRIOR. 

Ay,  but  are  they  good? 
I  have  known  reasons  strong,  but  strongly  evil. 

DON  SILVA. 

'Tis  possible.     I  but  deliver  mine 

To  your  strict  judgment.     Late  dispatches  sent 

With  urgeuce  by  the  Count  of  Bavien, 

No  hint  on  my  part  prompting,  with  besides 

The  testified  concurrence  of  the  king 

And  our  Grand  Master,  have  made  peremptory 

The  course  which  else  had  been  but  rational. 

Without  the  forces  furnished  by  allies 

The  siege  of  Guadix  would  be  madness.     More, 

El  Zagal  has  his  eyes  upon  Bedmar: 


334  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Let  him  attempt  it:  in  three  weeks  from  hence 
The  Master  and  the  Lord  of  Aguilar 
Will  bring  their  forces.     We  shall  catch  the  Moors, 
The  last  gleaned  clusters  of  their  bravest  men, 
As  in  a  trap.     You  have  my  reasons,  father. 

PRIOR. 

And  they  sound  well.     But  free-tongued  rumor  adds 

A  pregnant  supplement — in  substance  this: 

That  inclination  snatches  arguments 

To  make  indulgence  seem  judicious  choice; 

That  you,  commanding  in  God's  Holy  War, 

Lift  prayers  to  Satan  to  retard  the  fight 

And  give  you  time  for  feasting — wait  a  siege, 

Call  daring  enterprise  impossible, 

Because  you'd  marry!     You,  a  Spanish  duke, 

Christ's  general,  would  marry  like  a  clown, 

Who,  selling  fodder  dearer  for  the  war, 

Is  all  the  merrier;  nay,  like  the  brutes, 

Who  know  no  awe  to  check  their  appetite, 

Coupling  'mid  heaps  of  slain,  while  still  in  front 

The  battle  rages. 


Is  eloquent,  father. 


DON   SlLVA. 

Eumor  on  your  lips 


PRIOR. 
Is  she  true? 


DON  SILVA. 

Perhaps. 

I  seek  to  justify  my  public  acts 
And  not  my  private  joy.     Before  the  world 
Enough  if  I  am  faithful  in  command, 
Betray  not  by  my  deeds,  swerve  from  no  task 
My  knightly  vows  constrain  me  to:  herein 
I  ask  all  men  to  test  me. 

PRIOR. 

Knightly  vows? 
Is  it  by  their  constraint  that  you  must  marry? 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  335 

DON   SlLVA. 

Marriage  is  not  a  breach  of  them.     I  use 

iictioucd  liberty your  pardon,  father, 

I  need  not  teach  you  what  the  Church  decrees. 
But  facts  may  weaken  texts,  and  so  dry  up 
The  fount  of  eloquence.     The  Church  relaxed 
Our  Order's  rule  before  I  took  the  vows. 

PBIOK. 

Ignoble  liberty!  you  snatch  your  rule 

From  what  God  tolerates,  not  what  he  loves? — 

Inquire  what  lowest  offering  may  suffice, 

Cheapen  it  meanly  to  an  obolus, 

Buy,  and  then  count  the  coin  left  in  your  purse 

For  your  debauch? — Measure  obedience 

By  scantest  powers  of  brethren  whose  frail  flesh 

Our  Holy  Church  indulges? — Ask  great  Law, 

The  rightful  Sovereign  of  the  human  soul, 

For  what  it  pardons,  not  what  it  commands? 

0  fallen  knighthood,  penitent  of  high  vows, 
Asking  a  charter  to  degrade  itself! 

Such  poor  apology  of  rules  relaxed 
Blunts  not  suspicion  of  that  doubleness 
Your  enemies  tax  you  with. 

DON  SILVA. 

Oh,  for  the  rest, 

Conscience  is  harder  than  our  enemies, 
Knows  more,  accuses  with  more  nicety, 
Nor  needs  to  question  Rumor  if  we  fall 
Below  the  perfect  model  of  our  thought. 

1  fear  no  outward  arbiter. — You  smile? 

PRIOR. 

Ay,  at  the  contrast  'twixt  your  portraiture 

And  the  true  image  of  your  conscience,  shown 

As  now  I  see  it  in  your  acts.     I  see 

A  drunken  sentinel  who  gives  alarm 

At  his  own  shadow,  but  when  sealers  snatch 

His  weapon  from  his  hand  smiles  idiot-like 

At  games  he's  dreaming  of. 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

DON  SILVA. 

A  parable! 
The  husk  is  rough — holds  something  bitter,  doubtless. 

PRIOR. 

Oh,  the  husk  gapes  with  meaning  over-ripe. 
You  boast  a  conscience  that  controls  your  deeds, 
Watches  your  knightly  armor,  guards  your  rank 
From  stain  of  treachery — you,  helpless  slave, 
Whose  will  lies  nerveless  in  the  clutch  of  lust — 
Of  blind  mad  passion — passion  itself  most  helpless, 
Storm-driven,  like  the  monsters  of  the  sea. 
0  famous  conscience! 

DON  SILVA. 

Pause  there!    Leave  unsaid 

Aught  that  will  match  that  text.  More  were  too  much, 
Even  from  holy  lips.     I  own  no  love 
But  such  as  guards  my  honor,  since  it  guards 
Hers  whom  I  love!     I  suffer  no  foul  words 
To  stain  the  gift  I  lay  before  her  feet; 
And,  being  hers,  my  honor  is  more  safe. 

PRIOR. 

Versemakers'  talk!  fit  for  a  world  of  rhymes, 

Where  facts  are  feigned  to  tickle  idle  ears, 

Where  good  and  evil  play  at  tournament 

And  end  in  amity — a  world  of  lies — 

A  carnival  of  words  where  every  year 

Stale  falsehoods  serve  fresh  men.     Your  honor  safe? 

WThat  honor  has  a  man  with  double  bonds? 

Honor  is  shifting  as  the  shadows  are 

To  souls  that  turn  their  passions  into  laws. 

A  Christian  knight  who  weds  an  infidel 

DON  SILVA  (fiercely). 
An  infidel! 

PRIOR. 

May  one  day  spurn  the  Cross, 
And  call  that  honor! — one  day  find  his  sword 
Stained  with  his  brother's  blood,  and  call  that  honor! 


Till.    SPANISH    GYPSY.  337 

Apostates'  honor? — harlots'  clmstity! 
Renegades'  faithfulness? — Iscariot's! 

DON  SILVA. 

Strong  words  and  burning;  but  they  scorch  not  me. 
Fedalma  is  a  daughter  of  the  Church — 
Has  been  baptized  and  nurtured  in  the  faith. 

PRIOR. 

Ay,  as  a  thousand  Jewesses,  who  yet 
Are  brides  of  Satan  in  a  robe  of  flames. 

DON  SILVA. 

Fedalma  is  no  Jewess,  bears  no  marks 
That  tell  of  Hebrew  blood. 

PRIOR. 

She  bears  the  marks 
Of  races  unbaptized,  that  never  bowed 
Before  the  holy  signs,  were  never  moved 
By  stirrings  of  the  sacramental  gifts. 

DON  SILVA  (scornfully). 

Holy  accusers  practice  palmistry, 

And,  other  witness  lacking,  read  the  skin. 

PRIOR. 

I  read  a  deeper  record  than  the  skin. 
What!     Shall  the  trick  of  nostrils  and  of  lips 
Descend  through  generations,  and  the  soul 
That  moves  within  our  frame  like  God  in  worlds — 
Convulsing,  urging,  melting,  withering — 
Imprint  no  record,  leave  no  documents, 
Of  her  great  history?    Shall  men  bequeath 
The  fancies  of  their  palate  to  their  sons, 
And  shall  the  shudder  of  restraining  awe, 
The  slow-wept  tears  of  contrite  memory, 
Faith's  prayerful  labor,  and  the  food  divine 
Of  fasts  ecstatic — shall  these  pass  away 
Like  wind  upon  the  waters,  tracklessly? 
Shall  the  mere  curl  of  eyelashes  remain, 
22 


338  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

And  god-enshrining  symbols  leave  no  trace 
Of  tremors  reverent? — That  maiden's  blood 
Is  as  unchristian  as  the  leopard's. 

DON   SlLVA. 

Say, 

Unchristian  as  the  Blessed  Virgin's  blood 
Before  the  angel  spoke  the  word,  "All  hail!" 

PRIOR  (smiling  bitterly). 

Said  I  not  truly?    See,  your  passion  weaves 
Already  blasphemies! 

DON  SILVA. 

'Tis  you  provoke  them. 

PRIOR. 

I  strive,  as  still  the  Holy  Spirit  strives, 

To  move  the  will  perverse.     But,  failing  this, 

God  commands  other  means  to  save  our  blood, 

To  save  Castilian  glory— nay,  to  save 

The  name  of  Christ  from  blot  of  traitorous  deeds. 

DON  SILVA. 

Of  traitorous  deeds!    Age,  kindred,  and  your  cowl, 

Give  an  ignoble  license  to  your  tongue. 

As  for  your  threats,  fulfill  them  at  your  peril. 

'Tis  you,  not  I,  will  gibbet  our  great  name 

To  rot  in  infamy.     If  I  am  strong 

In  patience  now,  trust  me,  I  can  be  strong 

Then  in  defiance. 

PRIOR. 

Miserable  man! 

Your  strength  will  turn  to  anguish,  like  the  strength 
Of  fallen  angels.     Can  you  change  your  blood? 
You  are  a  Christian,  with  the  Christian  awe 
In  every  vein.     A  Spanish  noble,  born 
To  serve  your  people  and  your  people's  faith. 
Strong,  are  you?    Turn  your  back  upon  the  Cross — 
Its  shadow  is  before  you.     Leave  your  place: 
Quit  the  great  ranks  of  knighthood:  you  will  walk 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  339 

» 

Forever  with  a  tortured  double  self, 

A  self  that  will  be  hungry  while  you  feast, 

Will  blush  with  shame  while  you  are  glorified, 

Will  feel  the  ache  and  chill  of  desolation, 

Even  in  the  very  bosom  of  your  love. 

Mate  yourself  with  this  woman,  fit  for  what? 

To  make  the  sport  of  Moorish  palaces, 

A  lewd  Herodias 

DON  SILVA. 

Stop!  no  other  man, 

Priest  though  he  were,  had  had  his  throat  left  free 
For  passage  of  those  words.     I  would  have  clutched 
His  serpent's  neck,  and  flung  him  out  to  hell! 
A  monk  must  needs  defile  the  name  of  love; 
He  knows  it  but  as  tempting  devils  paint  it. 
You  think  to  scare  my  love  from  its  resolve 
With  arbitrary  consequences,  strained 
By  rancorous  effort  from  the  thinnest  motes 
Of  possibility? — cite  hideous  lists 
Of  sins  irrelevant,  to  frighten  me 
With  bugbears'  names,  as  women  fright  a  child? 
Poor  pallid  wisdom,  taught  by  inference 
From  blood-drained  life,  where  phantom  terrors  rule, 
And  all  achievement  is  to  leave  undone! 
Paint  the  day  dark,  make  sunshine  cold  to  me, 
Abolish  the  earth's  fairness,  prove  it  all 
A  fiction  of  my  eyes — then,  after  that, 
Profane  Fedalma. 

PKIOR. 

0  there  is  no  need: 

She  has  profaned  herself.     Go,  raving  man, 
And  see  her  dancing  now.     Go,  see  your  bride 
Flaunting  her  beauties  grossly  in  the  gaze 
Of  vulgar  idlers — eking  out  the  show 
Made  in  the  Placa  by  a  mountebank. 
I  hinder  you  no  farther. 

DON  SILVA. 

It  is  false! 

PRIOR. 
Go,  prove  it  false,  then. 


340  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 


[Father  Isidor 

Drew  on  his  cowl  and  turned  away.     The  face 

That  flashed  anathemas,  in  swift  eclipse 

Seemed  Silva's  vanished  confidence.     In  haste 

He  rushed  unsignaled  through  the  corridor 

To  where  the  Duchess  once,  Fedalma  now, 

Had  residence  retired  from  din  of  arms — 

Knocked,  opened,  found  all  empty — said 

With  muffled  voice,  "Fedalma!" — called  more  loud, 

More  oft  on  Inez,  the  old  trusted  nurse — 

Then  searched  the  terrace-garden,  calling  still, 

But  heard  no  answering  sound,  and  saw  no  face 

Save  painted  faces  staring  all  unmoved 

By  agitated  tones.     He  hurried  back, 

Giving  half-conscious  orders  as  he  went 

To  page  and  usher,  that  they  straight  should  seek 

Lady  Fedalma;  then  with  stinging  shame 

Wished  himself  silent;  reached  again  the  room 

Where  still  the  Father's  menace  seemed  to  hang 

Thickening  the  air;  snatched  cloak  and  plumed  hat, 

And  grasped,  not  knowing  why,  his  poniard's  hilt; 

Then  checked  himself  and  said: — ] 

If  he  spoke  truth! 

To  know  were  wound  enough — to  see  the  truth 
Were  fire  upon  the  wound.     It  must  be  false! 
His  hatred  saw  amiss,  or  snatched  mistake 
In  other  men's  report.     I  am  a  fool! 
But  where  can  she  be  gone?  gone  secretly? 
And  in  my  absence?     Oh,  she  meant  no  wrong! 
I  am  a  fool! — But  where  can  she  be  gone? 
With  only  Inez?     Oh,  she  meant  no  wrong! 
I  swear  she  never  meant  it.     There's  no  wrong 
But  she  would  make  it  momentary  right 

By  innocence  in  doing  it 

And  yet, 

What  is  our  certainty?    Why,  knowing  all 
That  is  not  secret.     Mighty  confidence  ! 
One  pulse  of  Time  makes  the  base  hollow — sends 
The  towering  certainty  we  built  so  high 
Toppling  in  fragments  meaningless.     What  is — 
What  will  be — must  be — pooh!  they  weight  the  key 
Of  that  which  is  not  yet;  all  other  keys 
Are  made  of  our  conjectures,  take  their  sense 


Tin-;  >i'ANisn    QTPBY.  341 

From  humors  fooled  by  hope,  or  by  despair. 
Know  what  is  good?    0  God,  we  know  not  yet 
If  bliss  itself  is  not  young  misery 

With  fangs  swift  growing 

But  some  outward  harm 
May  even  now  be  hurting,  grieving  her. 
01^  I  must  search — face  shame — if  shame  be  there. 
Here,  Perez!  hasten  to  Don  Alvar — tell  him 
Lady  Fedalma  must  be  sought-  -is  lost — 
Has  met,  I  fear,  some  mischance.     He  must  send 
Toward  divers  points.     I  go  myself  to  seek 
First  in  the  town 

[As  Perez  oped  the  door, 
Then  moved  aside  for  passage  of  the  Duke, 
Fedalma  entered,  cast  away  the  cloud 
Of  serge  and  linen,  and  out  beaming  bright, 
Advanced  a  pace  toward  Silva — but  then  paused, 
For  he  had  started  and  retreated;  she, 
Quick  and  responsive  as  the  subtle  air 
To  change  in  him,  divined  that  she  must  wait 
Until  they  were  alone:  they  stood  and  looked. 
Within  the  Duke  was  struggling  confluence 
Of  feelings  manifold — pride,  auger,  dread, 
Meeting  in  stormy  rush  with  sense  secure 
That  she  was  present,  with  the  new-stilled  thirst 
Of  gazing  love,  with  trust  inevitable 
As  in  beneficent  virtues  of  the  light 
And  all  earth's  sweetness,  that  Fedalma's  soul 
Was  free  from  blemishing  purpose.     Yet  proud  wrath 
Leaped  in  dark  flood  above  the  purer  stream 
That  strove  to  drown  it:  Anger  seeks  its  prey — 
Something  to  tear  with  sharp-edged  tooth  and  claw, 
Likes  not  to  go  off  hungry,  leaving  love 
To  feast  on  milk  and  honeycomb  at  will. 
Silva's  heart  said,  he  must  be  happy  soon, 
She  being  there;  but  to  be  happy — first 
He  must  be  angry,  having  cause.     Yet  love 
Shot  like  a  stifled  cry  of  tenderness 
All  through  the  harshness  he  would  fain  have  given 
To  the  dear  word,] 

DON  SILVA, 
Fedalma! 


342  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

FEDALMA. 

0  my  lord! 
You  are  come  back,  and  I  was  wandering! 

DON  SILVA  (coldly,  but  with  suppressed  agitation). 
You  meant  I  should  be  ignorant. 

FEDALMA. 

Oh,  no, 

I  should  have  told  you  after — not  before, 
Lest  you  should  hinder  me. 

DON  SILVA. 

Then  my  known  wish 
Can  make  no  hindrance? 

FEDALMA  (archly). 

That  depends 

On  what  tjie  wish  may  be.     You  wished  me  once 
Not  to  uncage  the  birds.     I  meant  to  obey: 
But  in  a  moment  something — something  stronger, 
Forced  me  to  let  them  out.     It  did  no  harm. 
They  all  came  back  again — the  silly  birds! 
I  told  you,  after. 

DON  SILVA  (with  haughty  coldness). 

Will  you  tell  me  now 

What  was  the  prompting  stronger  than  my  wish 
That  made  you  wander? 

FEDALMA  (advancing  a  step  toward  him,  with  a  sudden 
look  of  anxiety). 

Are  you  angry? 

DON  SILVA  (smiling  bitterly). 

Angry? 

A  man  deep  wounded  may  feel  too  much  pain 
To  feel  much  anger. 

FEDALMA  (still  more  anxiously). 
You — deep-wounded  ? 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  343 

DON   SlLVA. 

Yes! 

Have  I  not  made  your  place  and  dignity 
The  very  heart  of  my  ambition?     You — 
No  enemy  could  do  it — you  alone 
Can  strik'e  it  mortally. 

FED  ALMA. 

Nay,  Silva,  nay. 

Has  some  one  told  you  false?    I  only  went 
To  see  the  world  with  Inez — see  the  town, 
The  people,  everything.     It  was  no  harm. 
I  did  not  mean  to  dance:  it  happened  so 
At  last 

DON  SILVA. 

0  God,  it's  true  then! — true  that  you, 
A  maiden  nurtured  as  rare  flowers  are, 
The  very  air  of  heaven  sifted  fine 
Lest  any  mote  should  mar  your  purity, 
Have  flung  yourself  out  on  the  dusty  way 
For  common  eyes  to  see  your  beauty  soiled! 
You  own  it  true — you  danced  upon  the  Pla9a? 

FEDALMA  ( proudly ). 

Yes,  it  is  true.     I  was  not  wrong  to  dance. 

The  air  was  filled  with  music,  with  a  song 

That  seemed  the  voice  of  the  sweet  eventide — 

The  glowing  light  entering  through  eye  and  ear — 

That  seemed  our  love — mine,  yours — they  are  but  one — 

Trembling  through  all  my  limbs,  as  fervent  words 

Tremble  within  my  soul  and  must  be  spoken. 

And  all  the  people  felt  a  common  joy 

And  shouted  for  the  dance.     A  brightness  soft 

As  of  the  angels  moving  down  to  see 

Illumined  the  broad  space.     The  joy,  the  life 

Around,  within  me,  were  one  heaven:  I  longed 

To  blend  them  visibly:  I  longed  to  dance 

Before  the  people — be  as  mounting  flame 

To  all  that  burned  within  them!     Nay,  I  danced; 

There  was  no  longing:  I  but  did  the  deed 

Being  moved  to  do  it. 


344  THE   SPANISH    GYTSY. 

(As  FEDALMA  speaks,  she  and  DON  SILVA  are  gradually 
drawn  nearer  to  each  other.) 

Oh!  I  seemed  new- waked 
To  life  in  unison  with  a  multitude — 
Feeling  my  soul  upborne  by  all  their  souls, 
Floating  within  their  gladness!     Soon  I  lost 
All  sense  of  separateness:  Fed  alma  died- 
As  a  star  dies,  and  melts  into  the  light. 
I  was  not,  but  joy  was,  and  love  and  triumph. 
Nay,  my  dear  lord,  I  never  could  do  aught 
But  I  must  feel  you  present.     And  once  done, 
Why,  you  must  love  it  better  than  your  wish. 
I  pray  you,  say  so — say,  it  was  not  wrong! 

( While  FEDALMA  has  been  making  this  last  appeal,  they  have 
gradually  come  close  together,  and  at  last  embrace. ) 

DON  SILVA  (holding  her  hands). 

Dangerous  rebel!  if  the  world  without 

Were  pure  as  that  within but  'tis  a  book 

Wherein  you  only  read  the  poesy 
And  miss  all  wicked  meanings.     Hence  the  need 
For  trust — obedience — call  it  what  you  will — 
Toward  him  whose  life  will  be  your  guard — toward  me 
Who  now  am  soon  to  be  your  husband. 

FEDALMA. 

Yes! 

That  very  thing  that  when  I  am  your  .wife 
I  shall  be  something  different, — shall  be 
I  know  not  what,  a  Duchess  with  new  thoughts — 
For  nobles  never  think  like  common  men, 
Nor  wivos  like  maidens  (Oh,  you  wot  not  yet 
How  much  I  note,  with  all  my  ignorance) — 
That  very  thing  has  made  me  more  resolve 
To  have  my  will  before  I  am  your  wife. 
How  can  the  Duchess  ever  satisfy 
Fedalma's  unwed  eyes?  and  so  to-day 
I  scolded  Ifiez  till  she  cried  and  went. 

DON  SILVA. 

It  was  a  guilty  weakness:  she  knows  well 
That  since  you  pleaded  to  be  left  more  free 


T11K    M'ANISH    (iYI'SY.  345 

From  tedious  tendance  and  control  of  dames 
Whose  rank  matched  better  with  your  destiny, 
Her  charge — my  trust — was  weightier. 

FEDALMA. 

Nay,  my  lord, 

You  must  not  blame  her,  dear  old  nurse.     She  cried, 
Why,  you  would  have  consented  too,  at  last. 
I  said  such  things!     I  was  resolved  to  go, 
And  see  the  streets,  the  shops,  the  men  at  work, 
The  women,  little  children — everything, 
Just  as  it  is  when  nobody  looks  on. 
And  I  have  done  it!    We  were  out  for  hours. 
I  feel  so  wise. 

DON  SILVA. 

Had  you  but  seen  the  town, 
You  innocent  naughtiness,  not  shown  yourself — 
Shown  yourself  dancing — you  bewilder  me! — 
Frustrate  my  judgment  with  strange  negatives 
That  seem  like  poverty,  and  yet  are  wealth 
In  precious  womanliness,  beyond  the  dower 
Of  other  women:  wealth  in  virgin  gold, 
Outweighing  all  their  petty  currency. 
You  daring  modesty!     You  shrink  no  more 
From  gazing  men  than  from  the  gazing  flowers 
That,  dreaming  sunshine,  open  as  you  pass. 

FEDALMA. 

No,  I  should  like  the  world  to  look  at  me 

With  eyes  of  love  that  make  a  second  day. 

I  think  your  eyes  would  keep  the  life  in  me 

Though  I  had  naught  to  feed  on  else.     Their  blue 

Is  better  than  the  heavens' — holds  more  love 

For  me,  Fedalma — is  a  little  heaven 

For  this  one  little  world  that  looks  up  now. 

DON  SILVA. 

0  precious  little  world !  you  make  the  heaven 
As  the  earth  makes  the  sky.     But,  dear,  all  eyes, 
Though  looking  even  on  you,  have  not  a  glance 
That  cherisbes 


346  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

FEDALMA. 

Ah  no,  I  meant  to  tell  you — 
Tell  how  my  dancing  ended  with  a  pang. 
There  came  a  man,  one  among  many  more, 
But  lie  came  first,  with  iron  on  his  limbs. 
And  when  the  bell  tolled,  and  the  people  prayed, 
And  I  stood  pausing — then  he  looked  at  me. 

0  Silva,  such  a  man!     I  thought  he  rose 
From  the  dark  place  of  long-imprisoned  souls, 
To  say  that  Christ  had  never  come  to  them. 

It  was  a  look  to  shame  a  seraph's  joy, 

And  make  him  sad  in  heaven.     It  found  me  there — 

Seemed  to  have  traveled  far  to  find  me  there 

And  grasp  me — claim  this  festal  life  of  mine 

As  heritage  of  sorrow,  chill  my  blood 

With  the  cold  iron  of  some  unknown  bonds. 

The  gladness  hurrying  full  within  my  veins 

Was  sudden  frozen,  and  I  danced  no  more. 

But  seeing  you  let  loose  the  stream  of  joy, 

Mingling  the  present  with  the  sweetest  past. 

Yet,  Silva,  still  I  see  him.     Who  is  he? 

Who  are  those  prisoners  with  him?     Are  they  Moors? 

DON  SILVA. 

No,  they  are  Gypsies,  strong  and  cunning  knaves, 
A  double  gain  to  us  by  the  Moors'  loss: 
The  man  you  mean — their  chief — is  an  ally 
The  infidel  will  miss.     His  look  might  chase 
A  herd  of  monks,  and  make  them  fly  more  swift 
Than  from  Saint  Jerome's  lion.     Such  vague  fear, 
Such  bird-like  tremors  when  that  savage  glance 
Turned  full  upon*  you  in  your  height  of  joy 
Was  natural,  was  not  worth  emphasis. 
Forget  it,  dear.     This  hour  is  worth  whole  days 
When  we  are  sundered.     Danger  urges  us 
To  quick  resolve. 

FEDALMA. 

What  danger?  what  resolve? 

1  never  felt  chill  shadow  in  my  heart 
Until  this  sunset. 

DON  SILVA. 

A  dark  enmity 
Plots  how  to  sever  us.     And  our  defense 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  347 

Is  speedy  marriage,  secretly  achieved, 
Then  publicly  declared.     Beseech  you,  dear, 
Grant  me  this  confidence;  do  my  will  in  this, 
Trusting  the  reasons  why  I  overset 
All  my  own  airy  building  raised  so  high 
Of  bridal  honors,  marking  when  you  step 
From  off  your  maiden  throne  to  come  to  me 
And  bear  the  yoke  of  love.     There  is  great  need. 
I  hastened  home,  carrying  this  prayer  to  you 
Within  my  heart.     The  bishop  is  my  friend, 
Furthers  our  marriage,  holds  in  enmity — 
Some  whom  we  love  not  and  who  love  not  us. 
By  this  night's  moon  our  priest  will  be  dispatched 
From  Jae'n.     I  shall  march  an  escort  strong 
To  meet  him.     Ere  a  second  sun  from  this 
Has  risen — you  consenting — we'  may  wed. 

FED  ALMA. 
None  knowing  that  we  wed? 

DON  SILVA. 

Beforehand  none 

Save  Inez  and  Don  Alvar.     But  the  vows 
Once  safely  binding  us,  my  household  all 
Shall  know  you  as  their  Duchess.     No  man  then 
Can  aim  a  blow  at  you  but  through  my  breast, 
And  what  sta'ins  you  must  stain  our  ancient  name; 
If  any  hate  you  I  will  take  his  hate, 
And  wear  it  as  a  glove  upon  my  helm; 
Nay,  God  himself  will  never  have  the  power 
To  strike  you  solely  and  leave  me  unhurt, 
He  having  made  us  one.     Now  put  the  seal 
Of  your  dear  lips  on  that. 

FEDALMA. 

A  solemn  kiss? — 

Such  as  I  gave  you  when  you  came  that  day 
From  Cordova,  when  first  we  said  we  loved  ? 
When  you  had  left  the  ladies  of  the  Court 
For  thirst  to  see  me;  and  you  told  me  so, 
And  then  I  seemed  to  know  why  I  had  lived. 
I  never  knew  before.     A  kiss  like  that? 


348  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

DON   SlLVA. 

Yes,  yes,  you  face  divine!    When  was  our  kiss 
Like  any  other? 

FEDALMA. 

Nay,  I  cannot  tell 

What  other  kisses  are.     But  that  one  kiss 
Remains  upon  my  lips.     The  angels,  spirits, 
Creatures  with  finer  sense,  may  see  it  there. 
And  now  another  kiss  that  will  not  die, 
Saying,  To-morrow  I  shall  be  your  wife! 


kiss,  and  pause  a  moment,  looking  earnestly  in  each 
other's  eyes.  Then  FEDALMA,  breaking  aivay  from  DON 
SILVA,  stands  at  a  'little  distance  from  him  with  a  look 
of  roguish  delight. ) 

Now  I  am  glad  I  saw  the  town  to-day 
Before  I  am  a  Duchess — glad  I  gave 
This  poor  Fedalma  all  her  wish.     For  once, 
Long  years  ago,  I  cried  when  Inez  said, 
"  You  are  no  more  a  little  girl ";  I  grieved 
To  part  forever  from  that  little  girl 
And  all  her  happy  world  so  near  the  ground. 
It  must  be  sad  to  outlive  aught  we  love. 
So  I  shall  grieve  a  little  for  these  days 
Of  poor  unwed  Fedalma.     Oh,  they  are  sweet, 
And  none  will  come  just  like  them.-  Perhaps  the  wind 
Wails  so  in  winter  for  the  summer's  dead, 
And  all  sad  sounds  are  nature's  funeral  cries 
For  what  has  been  and  is  not.     Are  they,  Silva? 

(She  comes  nearer  to  him  again,  and  lays  her  hand  on  his 
arm,  looking  up  at  him  with  melancholy. ) 

DON  SILVA. 

Why,  dearest,  you  began  in  merriment, 
And  end  as  sadly  as  a  widowed  bird. 
Some  touch  mysterious  has  new-tuned  your  soul 
To  melancholy  sequence.     You  soared  high 
In  that  wild  flight  of  rapture  when  you  danced, 
And  now  you  droop.     'Tis  arbitrary  grief, 
Surfeit  of  happiness,  that  mourns  for  loss 
Of  unwed  love,  which  does  but  die  like  seed 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  34H 

For  fuller  harvest  of  our  tenderness. 

\\'i-  in  our  wedded  life  shall  know  no  loss. 

We  .shall  new-date  our  years      What  went  before 

Will  be  the  time  of  promise,  shadows,  dreams; 

But  this,  full  revelation  of  great  love. 

For  rivers  blent  take  in  a  broader  heaven, 

And  we  shall  blend  our  souls.     Away  with  grief! 

When  this  dear  head  shall  wear  the  double  crown 

Of  wife  and  duchess — spiritually  crowned 

With  sworn  espousal  before  God  and  man — 

Visibly  crowned  with  jewels  that  bespeak 

The  chosen  sharer  of  my  heritage — 

My  love  will  gather  perfectness,  as  thoughts 

That  nourish  us  to  magnanimity 

Grow  perfect  with  more  perfect  utterance, 

Gathering  full-shapen  strength.  And  then  these  gems, 

(DoN  SILVA  draws  FEDALMA  toward  the  jewel-casket  on 
the  table,  and  opens  it.) 

Helping  the  utterance  of  my  soul's  full  choice, 
Will  be  the  words  made  richer  by  just  use, 
And  have  new  meaning  in  their  lustrousness. 
You  know  these  jewels;  they  are  precious  signs 
Of  long-transmitted  honor,  heightened  still 
By  worthy  wearing;  and  I  give  them  you — 
Ask  you  to  take  them — place  our  house's  trust 
In  her  sure  keeping  whom  my  heart  has  found 
Worthiest,  most  beauteous.     These  rubies — see — 
Were  falsely  placed  if  not  upon  your  brow. 

(FEDALMA,  while  DON  SILVA  holds  open  the  casket,  bends 
over  it,  looking  at  the  jewels  with  delight.) 

*  FEDALMA. 

Ah,  I  remember  them.     In  childish  days 
I  felt  as  if  they  were  alive  and  breathed. 
I  used  to  sit  with  awe  and  look  at  them. 
And  now  they  will  be  mine!     I'll  put  them  on. 
Help  me,  my  lord,  and  you  shall  see  me  now 
Somewhat  as  I  shall  look  at  Court  with  you, 
That  we  may  know  if  I  shall  bear  them  well. 
I  have  a  fear  sometimes:  I  think  your  love 
Has  never  paused  within  your  eyes  to  look, 


350  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

And  only  passes  through  them  into  mine. 
But  when  the  Court  is  looking,  and  the  queen, 
Your  eyes  will  follow  theirs.     Oh,  if  you  saw 
That  I  was  other  than  yon  wished — 'twere  death! 

DON  SILVA  (taking  up  a  jewel  and  placing  it  against  her 

ear). 

Nay,  let  us  try.     Take  out  your  ear-ring,  sweet. 
This  ruby  glows  with  longing  for  your  ear. 

FEDALMA  (talcing  out  her  ear-rings,  and  then  lifting  up 
the  other  jewels,  one  by  one. 

Pray,  fasten  in  the  rubies. 

(DON  SILVA  begins  to  put  in  the  ear-ring.) 

I  was  right! 

These  gems  have  life  in  them:  their  colors  speak, 
Say  what  words  fail  of.     So  do  many  tilings — 
The  scent  of  jasmine,  and  the  fountain's  plash, 
The  moving  shadows  on  the  far-off  hills, 
The  slanting  moonlight,  and  our  clasping  hands. 
0  Silva,  there's  an  ocean  round  our  words 
That  overflows  and  drowns  them.     Do  you  know 
Sometimes  when  we  sit  silent,  and  the  air 
Breathes  gently  on  us  from  the  orange  trees, 
It  seems  that  with  the  whisper  of  a  word 
Our  souls  must  shrink,  get  poorer,  more  apart. 
Is  it  not  true? 

DON  SILVA. 

Yes,  dearest,  it  is  true. 
Speech  is  but  broken  light  upon  the  depth 
Of  the  unspoken:  even  your  loved  words 
Float  in  the  larger  meaning  of  your  voice 
As  something  dimmer. 

(He  is  still  trying  in  vain  to  fasten  the  second  ear-ring, 
while  she  has  stooped  again  over  the  casket. ) 

FEDALMA  (raising  her  head). 

Ah!  your  lordly  hands 
Will  never  fix  that  jewel.     Let  me  try. 
Women's  small  finger-tips  have  eyes. 


Tin:  SPANISH   01  PBY,  351 

DON  SILVA. 

No,  no! 
I  like  the  task,  only  you  must  be  still. 

(She  stands  perfectly  still,  clasping  her  hands  together  while 
he  f<ixfi:ii*  fin'  xecond  ear-ring.  Suddenly  a  clanking 
noise  is  heard  without.) 

FEDALMA  (starting  with  an  expression  of  pain). 

What  is  that  sound? — that  jarring  cruel  sound? 
"Tis  there — outside. 

(She  tries  to  start  away  toward  the  window,  but  DON 
SILVA  detains  her.) 

DON  SILVA. 

O  heed  it  not,  it  comes 
From  workmen  in  the  outer  gallery. 

FEDALMA. 

It  is  the  sound  of  fetters;  sound  of  work 

Is  not  so  dismal.     Hark,  they  pass  along! 

I  know  it  is  those  Gypsy  prisoners. 

I  saw  them,  heard  their  chains.     0  horrible, 

To  be  in  chains!    Why,  I  with  all  my  bliss 

Have  longed  sometimes  to  fly  and  be  at  large; 

Have  felt  imprisoned  in  my  luxury 

With  servants  for  my  gaolers.     0  my  lord, 

Do  you  not  wish  the  world  were  different? 

DON  SILVA. 

It  will  be  different  when  this  war  has  ceased. 
You,  wedding  me,  will  make  it  different, 
Making  one  life  more  perfect. 

FEDALMA. 

That  is  true! 

And  I  shall  beg  much  kindness  at  your  hands 
For  those  who  are  less  happy  than  ourselves. — 
(Brightening]  Oh  I  shall  rule  you!  ask  for  many  things 
Before  the  world,  which  you  will  not  deny 
For  very  pride,  lest  men  should  say,  "The  Duke 
Holds  lightly  by  his  Duchess;  he  repents 
His  humble  choice. 


352  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

(She  breaks  aivay  from  him  and  returns  to  the  jewels, 
taking  up  a  necklace,  and  clasping  it  on  her  neck,  while 
he  takes  a  circlet  of  diamonds  and  rubies  and  raises  it 
toward  her  head  as  he  sneaks.) 

DON  SILVA. 

Doubtless,  I  shall  persist 
In  loving  you,  to  disappoint  the  world; 
Out  of  pure  obstinacy  feel  myself 
Happiest  of  men.     Now,  take  the  coronet. 

(He places  the  circlet  on  her  head.) 

The  diamonds  want  more  light.     See,  from  this  lamj 
I  can  set  tapers  burning. 

FEDALMA. 

Tell  me,  now, 

When  all  these  cruel  wars  are  at  an  end, 
And  when  we  go  to  Court  at  Cordova, 
Or  Seville,  or  Toledo — wait  awhile, 
I  must  be  farther  off  for  you  to  see — 

(She  retreats  to  a  distance  from  him,  and  then  advances 
slowly. ) 

Now  think  (I  would  the  tapers  gave  more  light!) 
If  when  you  show  me  at  the  tournaments 
Among  the  other  ladies,  they  will  say, 
"  Duke  Silva  is  well  matched.     His  bride  was  naught, 
Was  some  poor  foster-child,  no  man  knows  what; 
Yet  is  her  carriage  noble,  all  her  robes 
Are  worn  with  grace:  she  might  have  been  well  born." 
Will  they  say  so?    Think  now  we  are  at  Court, 
And  all  eyes  bent  on  me. 

DON  SILVA. 

Fear  not,  my  Duchess! 

Some  knight  who  loves  may  say  his  lady-love 
Is  fairer,  being  fairest.     None  can  say 
Don  Silva's  bride  might  better  fit  her  rank. 
You  will  make  rank  seem  natural  as  kind, 
As  eagle's  plumage  or  the  lion's  might. 
A  crown  upon  your  brow  would  seem  God-made. 


THE   SPANISH  GYPSY.  353 

FEDALMA. 

Then  I  ain  glad!    I  shall  try  011  to-night 
The  other  jewels — have  the  tapers  lit, 
And  see  the  diamonds  sparkle. 

(tike  goes  to  the  casket  again.) 

Here  is  gold — 
A  necklace  of  pure  gold — most  finely  wrought. 

(She  takes  out  a  large  gold  necklace  and  holds  it  up  before 
her,  then  turns  to  DON  SILVA.) 

But  this  is  one  that  you  have  worn,  my  lord? 

DON  SILVA. 
No,  love,  I  never  wore  it.     Lay  it  down. 

(He  puts  the  necklace  gently  out  of  her  hand,  then  joins 
both  her  hands  and  holds  them  up  between  his  own.) 

You  must  not  look  at  jewels  any  more, 
But  look  at  me. 

FEDALMA  (looking  up  at  him). 

0  you  dear  heaven! 

I  should  see  naught  if  you  were  gone.     'Tis  true 
My  mind  is  too  much  given  to  gauds — to  things 
That  fetter  thought  within  this  narrow  space. 
That  comes  of  fear. 

DON  SILVA. 
What  fear? 

FEDALMA. 

Fear  of  myself. 

For  when  T  walk  upon  the  battlements 
And  see  the  river  traveling  toward  the  plain, 
The  mountains  screening  all  the  world  beyond, 
A  longing  comes  that  haunts  me  in  my  dreams — 
Dreams  where  I  seem  to  spring  from  off  the  walls, 
And  fly  far,  far  away,  until  at  last 
I  find  in \  self  alone  among  the  rocks, 
-,'3 


354  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Kemember  then  that  I  have  left  you — try 
To  fly  back  to  you — and  my  wings  are  gone! 

DON  SILVA. 

A  wicked  dream!     If  ever  I  left  you, 

Even  in  dreams,  it  was  some  demon  dragged  me, 

And  with  fierce  struggles  I  awaked  myself. 

FEDALMA. 

It  is  a  hateful  dream,  and  when  it  comes — 

I  mean,  when  in  my  waking  hours  there  comes 

That  longing  to  be  free,  I  am  afraid: 

I  run  down  to  my  chamber,  plait  my  hair, 

Weave  colors  in  it,  lay  out  all  my  gauds, 

And  in  my  mind  make  new  ones  prettier. 

You  see  I  have  two  minds,  and  both  are  foolish. 

Sometimes  a  torrent  rushing  through  my  soul 

Escapes  in  wild  strange  wishes;  presently, 

It  dwindles  to  a  little  babbling  rill 

And  plays  among  the  pebbles  and  the  flowers. 

Inez  will  have  it  I  lack  broidery, 

Says  naught  else  gives  content  to  noble  maids. 

But  I  have  never  broidered — never  will. 

No,  when  I  am  a  Duchess  and  a  wife 

I  shall  ride  forth — may  I  not? — by  your  side. 

DON  SILVA. 

Yes,  you  shall  ride  upon  a  palfrey,  black 
To  match  Bavieca.     Not  Queen  Isabel 
Will  be  a  sight  more  gladdening  to  men's  eyes 
Than  my  dark  queen  Fedalma. 

FEDALMA. 

Ah,  but  you, 

You  are  my  king,  and  I  shall  tremble  still 
With  some  great  fear  that  throbs  within  my  love. 
Does  your  love  fear? 

DON  SILVA. 

Ah,  yes!  all  preoiousness 
To  mortal  hearts  is  guarded  by  a  fear. 
All  love  fears  loss,  and  most  that  loss  supreme, 
Its  own  perfection — seeing,  feeling  change 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  355 

From  high  to  lower,  dearer  to  less  dear. 

Can  love  be  careless?    If  we  lost  our  love 

What  should  we  6nd? — with  this  sweet  Past  torn  off, 

Our  lives  deep  scarred  just  where  their  beauty  lay? 

The  best  we  found  thenceforth  were  still  a  worse: 

The  only  better  is  a  Past  that  lives 

On  through  an  added  Present,  stretching  still 

In  hope  unchecked  by  shaming  memories 

To  life's  last  breath.     And  so  I  tremble  too 

Before  my  queen  Fedalma. 

FEDALMA. 

That  is  just. 

'Twere  hard  of  Love  to  make  us  women  fear 
And  leave  you  bold.     Yet  Love  is  not  quite  even. 
For  feeble  creatures,  little  birds  and  fawns, 
Are  shaken  more  by  fear,  while  large  strong  things 
Can  bear  it  stoutly.     So  we  women  still 
Are  not  well  dealt  with.     Yet  I'd  choose  to  be 
Fedalma  loving  Silva.     You,  my  lord, 
Hold  the  worse  share,  since  you  must  love  poor  me. 
But  is  it  what  we  love,  or  how  we  love, 
That  makes  true  good? 

DON  SILVA. 

O  subtlety!  for  me 

'Tis  what  I  love  determines  how  I  love. 
The  goddess  with  pure  rites  reveals  herself 
And  makes  pure  worship. 

FEDALMA. 

Do  you  worship  me? 

DON  SILVA. 

Ay,  with  that  best  of  worship  which  adores 
Goodness  adorable. 

FEDALMA  (archly). 

Goodness  obedient, 
Doing  your  will,  devontest  worshiper? 


356  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

DON  SILVA. 

Yes — listening  to  this  prayer.     This  very  night 
I  shall  go  forth.     And  you  will  rise  with  day 
And  wait  for  me? 

FEDALMA. 

Yes. 

DON  SILVA. 

I  shall  surely  come. 

And  then  we  shall  be  married.  Now  I  go 
To  audience  fixed  in  Abderahman's  tower. 
Farewell,  love! 

(They  embrace.) 

FEDALMA. 
Some  chill  dread  possesses  me! 

DON  SILYA 

Oh,  confidence  has  oft  been  evil  augury, 

So  dread  may  hold  a  promise.     Sweet,  farewell! 

I  shall  send  tendance  as  I  pass,  to  bear 

This  casket  to  your  chamber. — One  more  kiss. 

(Exit.) 

FEDALMA  (when  DON  SILYA  is  gone,  returning  to  the  cas- 
ket, and  looking  dreamily  at  the  jewels). 

Yes,  now  that  good  seems  less  impossible! 
Now  it  seems  true  that  I  shall  be  his  wife, 
Be  ever  by  his  side,  and  make  a  part 

In  all  his  purposes 

These  rubies  greet  me  Duchess.     How  they  glow! 

Their  prisoned  souls  are  throbbing  like  my  own. 

Perchance  they  loved  once,  were  ambitious,  proud; 

Or  do  they  only  dream  of  wider  life, 

Ache  from  intenseness,  yearn  to  burst  the  wall 

Compact  of  crystal  splendor,  and  to  flood 

Some  wider  space  with  glory?     Poor,  poor  gems! 

We  must  be  patient  in  our  prison-house, 

And  find  our  space  in  loving.     Pray  you,  love  me. 

Let  us  be  glad  together.     And  you,  gold — 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

(She  takes  up  the  gold  necklace.) 

You  wondrous  necklace — will  you  love  me  too, 
And  be  my  amulet  to  keep  me  safe 
From  eyes  that  hurt? 

(She  spreads  out  the  necklace,  meaning  to  clasp  it  on  her 
neck.    Then  pauses,  startled,  holding  it  before  her.) 

Why,  it  is  magical! 

He  says  he  never  wore  it — yet  these  lines — 
Nay,  if  he  had,  I  should  remember  well 
'Twas  he,  no  other      And  these  twisted  lines — 
They  seem  to  speak  to  me  as  writing  would, 
To  bring  a  message  from  the  dead,  dead  past. 
What  is  their  secret?    Are  they  characters? 
I  never  learned  them;  yet  they  stir  some  sense 
That  once  I  dreamed — I  have  forgotten  what. 
Or  was  it  life?    Perhaps  I  lived  before 
In  some  strange  world  where  first  my  soul  was  shaped, 
And  all  this  passionate  love,  and  joy,  and  pain, 
That  come,  I  know  not  whence,  and  sway  my  deeds, 
Are  old  imperious  memories,  blind  yet  strong, 
That  this  world  stirs  within  me;  as  this  chain 
Stirs  some  strange  certainty  of  visions  gone, 
And  all  my  mind  is  as  an  eye  that  stares 
Into  the  darkness  painfully. 

( Wliile  FEDALMA  has  been  looking  at  the  necklace,  JUAN 
has  entered,  and  finding  himself  unobserved  by  her,  says 
at  last.) 

Seflora! 

(FEDALMA  starts,  and  gathering  the  necklace  together  turns 

round.) 

Oh,  Juan,  it  is  you ! 

JUAN. 

I  met  the  Duke — 

Had  waited  long  without,  no  matter  why — 
And  when  he  ordered  one  to  wait  on  you 
And  carry  forth  a  burden  you  would  give, 
I  prayed  for  leave  to  be  the  servitor. 
Don  Silva  owes  me  twenty  granted  wishes 


358  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

That  I  have  never  tendered,  lacking  aught 
That  I  could  wish  for  and  a  Duke  could  grant; 
But  this  one  wish  to  serve  you,  weighs  as  much 
As  twenty  other  longings. 

FED  ALMA  (smiling). 

That  sounds  well. 

You  turn  your  speeches  prettily  as  songs. 
But  I  will  not  forget  the  many  days 
You  have  neglected  me.     Your  pupil  learns 
But  little  from  you  now.     Her  studies  flag. 
The  Duke  says,  "  That  is  idle  Juan's  way: 
Poets  must  rove — are  honey-sucking  birds 
And  know  not  constancy."     Said  he  quite  true? 

JUAN. 

0  lady,  constancy  has  kind  and  rank. 

One  man's  is  lordly,  plump,  and  bravely  clad, 

Holds  its  head  high,  and  tells  the  world  its  name: 

Another  man's  is  beggared,  must  go  bare, 

And  shiver  through  the  world,  the  jest  of  all. 

But  that  it  puts  the  motley  on,  and  plays 

Itself  the  jester.     But  I  see  you  hold 

The  Gypsy's  necklace:  it  is  quaintly  wrought. 

FEDALMA. 
The  Gypsy's?    Do  you  know  its  history? 

JUAN. 

No  farther  back  than  when  I  saw  it  taken 
From  off  its  wearer's  neck — the  Gypsy  chief's. 

FEDALMA  (eagerly). 

What!  he  who  paused,  at  tolling  of  the  bell, 
Before  me  in  the  Pla9a? 

JUAN. 

Yes,  I  saw 
His  look  fixed  on  you. 

FEDALMA. 

Know  you  aught  of  him? 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSI.  359 

JUAN. 

Something  and 'nothing — as  I  know  the  sky, 

Or  some  great  story  of  the  olden  time 

That  hides  a  secret.     I  have  oft  talked  with  him. 

He  seems  to  say  much,  yet  is  but  a  wizard 

Who  draws  down  rain  by  sprinkling;  throws  me  out 

Some  pregnant  text  that  urges  comment;  casts 

A  sharp-hooked  question,  baited  with  such  skill 

It  needs  must  catch  the  answer. 

FEDALMA. 

It  is  hard 

That  such  a  man  should  be  a  prisoner — 
Be  chained  to  work. 

JUAN. 

Oh,  he  is  dangerous! 
Granada  with  this  Zarca  for  a  king 
Might  still  maim  Christendom.     He  is  of  those 
Who  steal  the  keys  from  snoring  Destiny 
And  make  the  prophets  lie.     A  Gypsy,  too, 
Suckled  by  hunted  beasts,  whose  mother-milk 
Has  filled  his  veins  with  hate. 

FEDALMA. 

I  thought  his  eyes 

Spoke  not  of  hatred — seemed  to  say  he  bore 
The  pain  of  those  who  never  could  be  saved. 
What  if  the  Gypsies  are  but  savage  beasts, 
And  must  be  hunted? — let  them  be  set  free, 
Have  benefit  of  chase,  or  stand  at  bay 
And  fight  for  life  and  offspring.     Prisoners! 
Oh!  they  have  made  their  fires  beside  the  streams, 
Their  walls  have  been  the  rocks,  the  pillared  pines, 
Their  roof  the  living  sky  that  breathes  with  light: 
They  may  well  hate  a  cage,  like  strong-winged  birds, 
Like  me,  who  have  no  wings,  but  only  wishes. 
I  will  beseech  the  Duke  to  set  them  free. 

JUAN. 

Pardon  me,  lady,  if  I  seem  to  warn, 

Or  try  to  play  the  sage.     What  if  the  Duke 

Loved  not  to  hear  of  Gypsies?  if  their  name 


360  THE    SPANISH   GYI'SY. 

Were  poisoned  for  him  once,  being  used  amiss? 
I  speak  not  as  of  fact.     Our  nimble  souls 
Can  spin  an  insubstantial  universe 
Suiting  our  mood,  and  call  it  possible, 
Sooner  than  see  one  grain  with  eye  exact 
And  give  strict  record  of  it.     Yet  by  chance 
Our  fancies  may  be  truth  and  make  us  seers. 
'Tis  a  rare  teeming  world,  so  harvest-full, 
Even  guessing  ignorance  may  pluck  some  fruit. 
Note  what  I  say  no  farther  than  will  stead 
The  siege  you  lay.     I  would  not  seem  to  tell 
Aught  that  the  Duke  may  think  and  yet  withhold: 
It  were  a  trespass  in  me. 

FEDALMA. 

Fear  not,  Juan. 

Your  words  bring  daylight  with  them  when  you  speak. 
I  understand  your  care.     But  I  am  brave — 
Oh!  and  so  cunning! — always  I  prevail. 
Now,  honored  Troubadour,  if  you  will  be 
Your  pupil's  servant,  bear  this  casket  hence. 
Nay,  not  the  necklace:  it  is  hard  to  place. 
Pray  go  before  me;  Iflez  will  be  there. 

(Exit  JUAN  with  the  casket.) 

FEDALMA  (looking  again  at  the  necklace). 

It  is  his  past  clings  to  you,  not  my  own. 

If  we  have  each  our  angels,  good  and  bad, 

Fates,  separate  from  ourselves,  who  act  for  us 

When  we  are  blind,  or  sleep,  then  this  man's  fate, 

Hovering  about  the  thing  he  used  to  wear, 

Has  laid  its  grasp  on  mine  appealiugly. 

Dangerous,  is  he? — well,  a  Spanish  knight 

Would  have  his  enemy  strong — defy,  not  bind  him. 

I  can  dare  all  things  when  my  soul  is  moved 

By  something  hidden  that  possesses  me. 

If  Silva  said  this  man  must  keep  his  chains 

I  should  find  ways  to  free  him — disobey 

And  free  him  as  I  did  the  birds.     But  no! 

As  soon  as  we  are  wed,  I'll  put  my  prayer, 

And  he  will  not  deny  me:  he  is  good. 

Oh,  I  shall  have  much  power  as  well  as  joy  I 

Duchess  Fedalma  may  do  what  she  will. 


THE    M'ANISIf    (JVl'.SY.  ,'JOl 

A  Stri-t'l  by  the  Castle.  JUAN  leans  against  a  parapet,  in 
moonlight,  and  touches  his  lute  half  unconsciously. 
PKPITA  stands  on  tiptoe  watching  him,  and  then  ad- 
vances till  her  shadoiu  falls  in  front  of  him.  He  looks 
toward  her.  A  piece  of  tvhite  drapery  thrown  aver  her 
head  catches  the  moonlight. 

JUAN. 

Ha!   my  Pepita!  see  how  thin  and  long 
Your  shadow  is.     'Tis  so  your  ghost  will  be, 
When  you  are  dead. 

PEPITA  (crossing  herself). 

Dead! — 0  the  blessed  saints! 
You  would  be  glad,  then,  if  Pepita  died? 

JUAN. 

Glad!  why?    Dead  maidens  are  not  merry.     Ghosts 
Are  doleful  company.     I  like  you  living. 

PEPITA. 

I  think  you  like  me  not.     I  wish  you  did. 
Sometimes  you  sing  to  me  and  make  me  dance, 
Another  time  you  take  no  heed  of  me. 
Not  though  I  kiss  my  hand  to  you  and  smile. 
But  Andres  would  be  glad  if  I  kissed  him. 

JUAN. 
My  poor  Pepita,  I  am  old. 

PEPITA. 

No,  no. 
You  have  no  wrinkles. 

JUAN. 

Yes,  I  have — within; 
The  wrinkles  are  within,  my  little  bird. 
Why,  I  have  lived  through  twice  u  thousand  years, 
And  ke.pt  tlie  company  of  men  whoc  l»>iu'> 
Crumbled  be  fort'  the  blessed  Virgin  lived. 


362  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

PEPITA  (crossing  herself). 

Nay,  God  defend  us,  that  is  wicked  talk! 

You  say  it  but  to  scorn  me.    ( With  a  sob)  I  will  go. 

JUAN. 

Stay,  little  pigeon,  I  am  not  unkind. 

Come,  sit  upon  the  wall.     Nay,  never  cry. 

Give  me  your  cheek  to  kiss.     There,  cry  no  more! 

(PEPITA,  sitting  on  the  low  parapet,  puts  up  her  cheek  to 
JUAN,  who  kisses  it,  putting  his  hand  under  her  chin. 
She  takes  his  hand  and  kisses  it. ) 

PEPITA. 

I  like  to  kiss  your  hand.     It  is  so  good — 
So  smooth  and  soft. 

JUAN. 
Well,  well,  Pll  sing  to  you. 

PEPITA. 
A  pretty  song,  loving  and  merry? 

JUAN. 

Yes. 

JUAN  (sings). 

Memory, 
Tell  to  me 
What  is  fair, 
Past  compare, 
In  the  land  of  Tubal  9 

Is  it  Spring's 
Lovely  things, 
Blossoms  white, 
Rosy  dight  9 

Then  it  is  Pepita. 

Summer's  crest 
Red-gold  tressed, 


THE   rsl'AJSldll    GYPSY. 

Corn-flowers  peeping  under  ! — 
Idle  noons, 
Lingering  moons, 
Sudden  cloud, 
Lightning's  shroud, 
Sudden  rain, 
Quick  again 

Smiles  where  late  was  thunder  ? — 
Are  all  these 
Made  to  please  f 

So  too  is  Pepita. 

Autumn's  prime, 
Apple-time, 
Smooth  cheek  round, 
Heart  all  sound  9 — 
Is  it  this 
You  would  kiss  9 
Then  it  is  Pepita. 

You  can  bring 
No  sweet  thing, 
But  my  mind 
Still  shall  find 
It  is  my  Pepita. 

Memory 
Says  to  me 
It  is  she — 
She  is  fair 
Past  compare 
In  the  land  of  Tubal. 


PEPITA  (seizing  JUAN'S  hand  again). 
Oh,  then,  you  do  love  me? 


JUAN. 

Yes,  in  the  song. 


PEPITA  (sadly). 
\ot  out  of  it?— not  love  me  out  of  it? 


364  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

JUAN. 

Only  a  little  out  of  it  my  bird. 

When  I  was  singing  1  was  Andres,  say, 

Or  one  who  loves  you  better  still  than  he. 

PEPITA. 
Not  yourself? 

JUAN. 

No! 

PEPITA  (throwing  his  hand  down  pettishly). 

Then  take  it  back  again ! 


I  will  not  have  it! 


JUAN. 


Listen,  little  one. 

Juan  is  not  a  living  man  by  himself; 
His  life  is  breathed  in  him  by  other  men, 
And  they  speak  out  of  him.     He  is  their  voice 
Juan's  own  life  he  gave  once  quite  away. 
Pepita's  lover  sang  that  song — not  Juan. 
We  old,  old  poets,  if  we  kept  our  hearts, 
Should  hardly  know  them  from  another  man's. 
They  shrink  to  make  room  for  the  many  more 
We  keep  within  us.     There,  now — one  more  kiss, 
And  then  go  home  again. 

PEPITA  (a  little  frightened  after  letting  JUAN  kiss  her). 

You  are  not  wicked? 

JUAN. 
Ask  your  confessor — tell  him  what  I  said. 

(PEPITA  goes  ivhile  JUAN  thrums  his  lute  again,  and  sings.) 

Came  a  pretty  maid 

By  the  moon's  pure  light. 
Loved  me  well,  she  said, 

Eyes  with  tears  all  bright, 
A  pretty  maid! 


THE  SPANISH   GYPSY.  307) 

But  too  late  she  strayed, 

Moonlight  pure  tvas  there; 
She  was  naught  but  shade 

Hiding  the  more  fair, 
The  heavenly  maid! 

A  vaulted  room  all  stone.  The  light  shed  from  a  high 
lamp.  Wooden  chairs,  a  desk,  book-shelves.  The  PRIOK 
in  white  frock,  a  black  rosary  with  a  crucifix  of  ebony 
and  ivory  at  his  side,  is  walking  up  and  down,  holding 
a  written  paper  in  his  hands,  which  are  clasped  behind 
him. 

What  if  this  witness  lies?  he  says  he  heard  her 

Counting  her  blasphemies  on  a  rosary, 

And  in  a  bold  discourse  with  Salomo, 

Say  that  the  Host  was  naught  but  ill-mixed  flour, 

That  it  was  mean  to  pray — she  never  prayed. 

I  know  the  man  who  wrote  this  for  a  cur, 

Who  follows  Don  Diego,  sees  life's  good 

In  scraps  my  nephew  flings  to  him.     What  then? 

Particular  lies  may  speak  a  general  truth. 

I  guess  him  false,  but  know  her  heretic — 

Know  her  for  Satan's  instrument,  bedecked 

With  heathenish  charms,  luring  the  souls  of  men 

To  damning  trust  in  good  unsanctified. 

Let  her  be  prisoned — questioned — she  will  give 

Witness  against  herself,  that  were  this  false 

(He  looks  at  the  paper  again  and  reads,  then  again 
thrusts  it  behind  him. ) 

The  matter  and  the  color  are  not  false: 

The  form  concerns  the  witness,  not  the  judge; 

For  proof  is  gathered  by  the  sifting  mind, 

Not  given  in  crude  and  formal  circumstance. 

Suspicion  is  a  heaven-sent  lamp,  and  I — 

I  watchman  of  the  Holy  Office,  bear 

That  lamp  in  trust.     I  will  keep  faithful  watch. 

The  Holy  Inquisition's  discipline 

Is  mercy,  saving  her,  if  penitent — 

God  grant  it! — else — root  up  the  poison-plant, 

Though  'twere  a  lily  with  a  golden  heart! 

This  spotless  maiden  with  her  pagan  soul 

Is  the  arch-enemy's  trap:  ho  turns  his  back 


366  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

On  all  the  prostitutes,  and  watches  her 
To  see  her  poison  men  with  false  belief 
In  rebel  virtues.     She  has  poisoned  Silva; 
His  shifting  mind,  dangerous  in  fitfulness, 
Strong  in  the  contradiction  of  itself, 
Carries  his  young  ambitions  wearily, 
As  holy  VDWS  regretted.     Once  he  seemed 
The  fresh-oped  flower  of  Christian  knighthood,  born 
For  feats  of  holy  daring;  and  I  said: 
"That  half  of  life  which  I,  as  monk,  renounce, 
Shall  be  fulfilled  in  him:  Silva  will  be 
That  saintly  noble,  that  wise  warrior, 
That  blameless  excellence  in  worldly  gifts 
I  would  have  been,  had  I  not  asked  to  live 
The  higher  life  of  man  impersonal 
"Who  reigns  o'er  all  things  by  refusing  all." 
What  is  his  promise  now?    Apostasy 
From  every  high  intent: — languid,  nay,  gone, 
The  prompt  devoutness  of  a  generous  heart, 
The  strong  obedience  of  a  reverent  will, 
That  breathes  the  Church's  air  and  sees  her  light, 
He  peers  and  strains  with  feeble  questioning. 
Or  else  he  jests.     He  thinks  I  know  it  not — 
I  who  have  read  the  history  of  his  lapse, 
As  clear  as  it  is  writ  in  the  angel's  book. 
He  will  defy  me — flings  great  words  at  me — 
Me  who  have  governed  all  our  house's  acts, 
Since  I,  a  stripling,  ruled  his  stripling  father. 
This  maiden  is  the  cause,  and  if  they  wed, 
The  Holy  War  may  count  a  captain  lost. 
For  better  he  were  dead  than  keep  his  place, 
And  fill  it  infamously:  in  God's  war 
Slackness  is  infamy.     Shall  I  stand  by 
And  let  the  tempter  win?  defraud  Christ's  cause, 
And  blot  his  banner? — all  for  scruples  weak 
Of  pity  toward  their  young  and  frolicsome  blood; 
Or  nice  discrimination  of  the  tool 
By  which  my  hand  shall  work  a  sacred  rescue? 
The  fence  of  rules  is  for  the  purblind  crowd: 
They  walk  by  averaged  precepts :  sovereign  men, 
Seeing  by  God's  light,  see  the  general 
By  seeing  all  the  special — own  no  rule 
But  their  full  vision  of  the  moment's  worth. 
'Tis  so  God  governs,  using  wicked  men — 
Nay,  scheming  fiends,  to  work  his  purposes. 


THE   SPANISH    iJYI'SY.  3Gt 


Evil  that  good  may  come?    Measure  the  good 
Before  you  say  what's  evil.     Perjury? 
I  scorn  the  perjurer,  but  I  will  use  him 
To  serve  the  holy  truth.     There  is  no  lie 
Save  in  his  soul,  and  let  his  soul  be  judged. 
I  know  the  truth,  and  act  upon  the  truth. 

0  God,  thou  knowest  that  my  will  is  pure. 

Thy  servant  owns  naught  for  himself,  hia  wealth 

Is  but  obedience.     And  I  have  sinned 

In  keeping  small  respects  of  human  love— 

Calling  it  mercy.     Mercy?     Where  evil  is 

True  mercy  holds  a  sword.     Mercy  would  save. 

Save  whom?    Save  serpents,  locusts,  wolves? 

Or  out  of  pity  let  the  idiots  gorge 

Within  a  famished  town?    Or  save  the  gains 

Of  men  who  trade  in  poison  lest  they  starve  ? 

Save  all  things  mean  and  foul  that  clog  the  earth 

Stifling  the  better?     Save  the  fools  who  cling 

For  refuge  round  their  hideous  idol's  limbs, 

So  leave  the  idol  grinning  unconsumed, 

And  save  the  fools  to  breed  idolaters? 

0  mercy  worthy  of  the  licking  hound 

That  knows  no  future  but  its  feeding  time! 

Mercy  has  eyes  that  pierce  the  ages  —  sees 

From  heights  divine  of  the  eternal  purpose 

Far-scattered  consequence  in  its  vast  sura; 

Chooses  to  save,  but  with  illumined  vision 

Sees  that  to  save  is  greatly  to  destroy. 

JTis  so  the  Holy  Inquisition  sees:  its  wrath 

Is  fed  from  the  strong  heart  of  wisest  love. 

For  love  must  needs  make  hatred.     He  who  loves 

God  and  his  law  must  hate  the  foes  of  God. 

And  I  have  sinned  in  being  merciful  : 

Being  slack  in  hate,  I  have  been  slack  in  love. 

(He  takes  the  crucifix  and  holds  it  up  before  him.) 

Thou  shuddering,  bleeding,  thirsting,  dying  God, 

Thou  man  of  Sorrows,  scourged  and  bruised  and  torn, 

Suffering  to  save  —  wilt  thou  not  judge  the  world? 

This  arm  which  held  the  children,  this  pale  hand 

That  gently  touched  the  eyelids  of  the  blind. 

And  opened  passive  to  the  cruel  nail, 

Shall  one  day  stretch  to  leftward  of  thy  throne, 


368  THE  SPAKISH   GYPSY. 

Charged  with  the  power  that  makes  the  lightning 

strong, 

And  hurl  thy  foes  to  everlasting  hell. 
And  thou,  Immaculate  Mother,  Virgin  mild, 
Thou  sevenfold-pierced,  thou  pitying,  pleading  Queen, 
Shalt  see  and  smile,  while  the  black  filthy  souls 
Sink  with  foul  weight  to  their  eternal  place, 
Purging  the  Holy  Light.     Yea,  I  have  sinned 
And  called  it  mercy.     But  I  shrink  no  more. 
To-morrow  morn  this  temptress  shall  be  safe 
Under  the  Holy  Inquisition's  key. 
He  thinks  to  wed  her,  and  defy  me  then, 
She  being  shielded  by  our  house's  name. 
But  he  shall  never  wed  her.     I  have  said. 

The  time  is  come.     Exurge,  Domine, 
Judica  causam  tuam.     Let  thy  foes 
Be  driven  as  the  smoke  before  the  wind, 
And  melt  like  wax  upon  the  furnace  lip! 

A  large  chamber  richly  furnished  opening  on  a  terrace- 
garden,  the  trees  visible  through  the  window  in  faint 
moonlight.  Flowers  hanging  about  the  window,  lit  up 
by  the  tapers.  The  casket  of  jewels  open  on  a  table.  The 
gold  necklace  lying  near.  I^EDALMA,  splendidly  dressed 
and  adorned  with  pearls  and  rubies,  is  walking  up  and 
down. 

So  soft  a  night  was  never  made  for  sleep, 

But  for  the  waking  of  the  finer  sense 

To  every  murmuring  and  gentle  sound, 

To  subtlest  odors,  pulses,  visitings 

That  touch  our  frames  with  wings  too  delicate 

To  be  discerned  amid  the  glare  of  day. 

(She  pauses  near  the  window  to  gather  some  jasmine :  then 
walks  again.} 

Surely  these  flowers  keep  happy  watch — their  breath 

Is  their  fond  memory  of  the  loving  light. 

I  often  rue  the  hours  I  lose  in  sleep: 

It  is  a  bliss  too  brief,  only  to  see 

This  glorious  world,  to  hear  the  voice  of  love, 

To  feel  the  touch,  the  breath  of  tenderness, 

And  then  to  rest  as  from  a  spectacle. 

I  need  the  curtained  stillness  of  the  night 


THE    Sl'VXIMl    GYPSY.  369 

To  live  through  all  my  happy  hours  again 
With  more  selection — cull  them  quite  away 
From  blemished  moments.     Then  in  loneliness 
The  face  that  bent  before  me  in  the  day 
Rises  in  its  own  light,  more  vivid  seems 
Painted  upon  the  dark,  and  ceaseless  glows 
With  sweet  solemnity  of  gazing  love,. 
Till  like  the  heavenly  blue  it  seems  to  grow 
Nearer,  more  kindred,  and  more  cherishing, 
Mingling  with  all  my  being.     Then  the  words, 
The  tender  low-toned  words  come  back  again, 
With  repetition  welcome  as  the  chime 
Of  softly  hurrying  brooks — "My  only  love — 
My  love  while  life  shall  last — my  own  Fedalma!" 
On,  it  is  mine — the  joy  that  once  has  been! 
Poor  eager  hope  is  but  a  stammerer, 
Must  listen  dumbly  to  great  memory, 
Who  makes  our  bliss  the  sweeter  by  her  telling. 

(She  pauses  a  moment  musingly. ) 

But  that  dumb  hope  is  still  a  sleeping  giiard 
Whose  quiet  rhythmic  breath  saves  me  from  dread 
In  this  fair  paradise.     For  if  the  earth 
Broke  off  with  flower-fringed  edge,  visibly  sheer, 
Leaving  no  footing  for  my  forward  step 

But  empty  blackness 

Nay,  there  is  no  fear — 

They  will  renew  themselves,  day  and  my  joy, 
And  all  that  past  which  is  securely  mine, 
Will  be  the  hidden  root  that  nourishes 
Our  still  unfolding,  ever-ripening  love! 

( While  she  is  tittering  the  last  words,  a  little  bird  falls 
softly  on  the  floor  behind  her;  she  hears  the  light  sound 
of  its  fall  a  n  il  f  u  r  n  *  ro  u  nd. ) 

Did  something  enter ?- 


Yes,  this  little  bird- 


(She  lifts  it.) 


Dead  and  yet  warm;  'twas  seeking  sanctuary, 
And  died,  perhaps  of  fright,  at  the  altar  foot. 
Stay,  there  is  something  tied  beneath  the  win 
A  strip  of  linen,  streaked  with  blood — what  b 
M 


370  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

The  streaks  are  written  words — are  sent  to  me — 

0  God,  are  sent  to  me!    Dear  child,  Fedalma, 
Be  brave,  give  no  alarm — your  Father  conies ! 

(She  lets  the  bird  fall  again.) 
My  Father comes my  Father 

(She  turns  in  quivering  expectation  toward  the  window. 
There  is  perfect  stillness  a  few  moments  until  ZARCA 
appears  at  the  window.  He  enters  quickly  and  noise- 
lessly; then  stands  still  at  his  full  height,  and  at  a  dis- 
tance from  FEDALMA.) 

FEDALMA  (in  a  low  distinct  tone  of  terror). 

It  is  he! 

1  said  his  fate  had  laid  its  hold  on  mine. 

ZARCA  (advancing  a  step  or  two). 
You  know,  then,  who  I  am? 

FEDALMA. 

The  prisoner — 
He  whom  I  saw  in  fetters — and  this  necklace 

ZARCA. 

Was  played  with  by  your  fingers  when  it  hung 
About  my  neck,  full  fifteen  years  ago. 

FEDALMA  (looking  at  the  necklace  and  handling  it,  then 
speaking,  as  if  unconsciously). 

Full  fifteen  years  ago! 

ZARCA. 

The  very  day 

I  lost  you,  when  you  wore  a  tiny  gown 
Of  scarlet  cloth  with  golden  broidery: 
'Twas  clasped  in  front  by  coins — two  golden  coins. 
The  one  upon  the  left  was  split  in  two 
Across  the  king's  head,  right  from  brow  to  nape, 
A  dent  i'  the  middle  nicking  in  the  cheek. 
You  see  I  know  the  little  gown  by  heart. 


THE   SI'ANISH    c,\  |>SN  .  371 

FED  ALMA  (growing  paler  and  more  tremulous). 

Yes.     It  is  true — I  have  the  gown — the  clasps — 
The  braid — sore  tarnished: — it  is  long  ago! 

ZARCA. 

But  yesterday  to  me;  for  till  to-day 
I  saw  you  always  as  that  little  child. 
And  when  they  took  my  necklace  from  me,  still 
Your  fingers  played  about  it  on  my  neck, 
And  still  those  buds  of  fingers  on  your  feet 
Caught  in  its  meshes  as  you  seemed  to  climb 
Up  to  my  shoulder.     You  were  not  stolen  all. 
You  had  a  double  life  fed  from  my  heart 

(FEDALMA,  letting  fall  the  necklace,  makes  an  impulsive 
movement  toward  him,  ivith  outstretched  hands.) 

The  Gypsy  father  loves  his  children  well. 

FEDALMA  (shrinking,  trembling,  and  letting  fall  her  hands). 

How  came  it  that  you  sought  me — no — I  mean 
How  came  it  that  you  knew  me — that  you  lost  me? 

ZARCA  (standing  perfectly  still). 

Poor  child!  I  see — your  father  and  his  rags 
Are  welcome  as  the  piercing  wintry  wind 
Within  this  silken  chamber.     It  is  well. 
I  would  not  have  a  child  who  stooped  to  feign, 
And  aped  a  sudden  love.     Better,  true  hate. 

FEDALMA  (raising  her  eyes  toward  him,  with  a  flash  of 
admiration,  and  looking  at  him  fixedly). 

Father,  how  was  it  that  we  lost  each  other? 

ZARCA. 

I  lost  you  as  a  man  may  lose  a  gem 

Wherein  he  has  compressed  his  total  wealth, 

Or  the  right  hand  whose  cunning  makes  him  great: 

I  lost  you  by  a  trivial  accident. 

Marauding  Spaniards,  sweeping  like  a  storm 

Over  a  spot  within  the  Moorish  bounds, 

Near  where  our  camp  lay,  doubtless  snatched  you  up, 

When  Zind,  your  nurse,  as  she  confrssrd.  was  urged 


372  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

By  burning  thirst  to  wander  toward  the  stream, 
And  leave  you  on  the  sand  some  paces  off 
Playing  with  pebbles,  while  she  dog-like  lapped. 
'Twas  so  I  lost  you — never  saw  you  more 
Until  to-day  I  saw  you  dancing!     Saw 
The  daughter  of  the  Zincala  make  sport 
For  those  who  spit  upon  her  people's  name. 

FED  ALMA  (vehemently). 

It  was  not  sport.     What  if  the  world  looked  on? — 

I  danced  for  joy — for  love  of  all  the  world. 

But  when  you  looked  at  me  my  joy  was  stabbed — 

Stabbed    with    your    pain.      I    wondered now    I 

know 

It  was  my  father's  pain. 

(She  pauses  a  moment  with  eyes  bent  downward,  during 
tvhich  Z AKCA  examines  her  face.     Then  she  says  quickly, ) 

How  were  you  sure 
At  once  I  was  your  child? 

ZAECA. 

I  had  witness  strong 
As  any  Cadi  needs,  before  I  saw  you ! 
I  fitted  all  my  memories  with  the  chat 
Of  one  named  Juan — one  whose  rapid  talk 
Showers  like  the  blossoms  from  a  light-twigged  shrub, 
If  you  but  cough  beside  it.     I  learned  all 
The  story  of  your  Spanish  nurture — all 
The  promise  of  your  fortune.     When  at  last 
!  fronted  you,  my  little  maid  full-grown, 
Belief  was  turned  to  vision:  then  I  saw 
That  she  whom  Spaniards  called  the  bright  Fedalma — 
The  little  red-frocked  foundling  three  years  old — 
Grown  to  such  perfectness  the  Spanish  Duke 
Had  wooed  her  for  his  Duchess — was  the  child, 
Sole  offspring  of  my  flesh,  that  Lambra  bore 
One  hour  before  the  Christian,  hunting  us, 
Hurried  her  on  to  death.     Therefore  I  sought — 
Therefore  I  come  to  claim  you — claim  my  child, 
Not  from  the  Spaniard,  not  from  him  who  robbed, 
But  from  herself. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  373 

(FED ALMA  has  gradually  approached  close  to  ZARCA,  and 
with  a  loiv  sob  sinks  on  her  knees  before  him.  He  stoops 
to  kiss  her  brow,  and  lays  his  hands  on  her  head.) 

ZARCA  (with  solemn  tenderness). 
Then  my  child  owns  her  father? 

FEDALMA. 

Father!  yes. 

I  will  eat  dust  before  I  will  deny 
The  flesh  I  spring  from. 

ZARCA. 

There  my  daughter  spoke. 
Away  then  with  these  rubies! 

(He  seizes  the  circlet  of  rubies  and  flings  it  on  the  ground. 
FEDALMA,  starting  from  the  ground  with  strong  emotion, 
shrinks  backward. ) 

Such  a  crown 

Is  infamy  around  a  Zincala's  brow. 
It  is  her  people's  blood,  decking  her  shame. 

FEDALMA  (after  a  moment,  slowly  and  distinctly,  as  if 
accepting  a  doom). 

Then 1  was  born a  Zincala? 

ZARCA. 

Of  a  blood 
Unmixed  as  virgin  wine-juice. 

FEDALMA. 

Of  a  race 
More  outcast  and  despised  than  Moor  or  Jew? 

ZARCA. 

Yes:  wanderers  whom  no  God  took  knowledge  of 
To  give  them  laws,  to  light  for  them,  or  blight 
Another  race  to  make  them  ampler  room; 


374  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Who  have  no  Whence  or  Whither  in  their  souls, 
No  dimmest  lore  of  glorious  ancestors 
To  make  a  common  hearth  for  piety. 

FED  ALMA. 

A  race  that  lives  on  prey  as  foxes  do 

With  stealthy,  petty  rapine:  so  despised, 

It  is  not  persecuted,  only  spurned, 

Crushed  underfoot,  warred  on  by  chance  like  rats, 

Or  swarming  flies,  or  reptiles  of  the  sea 

Dragged  in  the  net  unsought,  and  flung  far  off 

To  perish  as  they  may? 

ZARCA. 

You  paint  us  well. 

So  abject  are  the  men  whose  blood  we  share: 
Untutored,  unbefriended,  unendowed; 
No  favorites  of  heaven  or  of  men. 
Therefore  I  cling  to  them!     Therefore  no  lure 
Shall  draw  me  to  disown  them,  or  forsake 
The  meagre  wandering  herd  that  lows  for  help 
And  needs  me  for  its  guide,  to  seek  my  pasture 
Among  the  well-fed  beeves  that  graze  at  will. 
Because  our  race  has  no  great  memories, 
I  will  so  live,  it  shall  remember  me 
For  deeds  of  such  divine  beneficence 
As  rivers  have,  that  teach  men  what  is  good 
By  blessing  them.    I  have  been  schooled— have  caaght 
Lore  from  the  Hebrew,  deftness  from  the  Moor — 
Know  the  rich  heritage,  the  milder  life, 
Of  nations  fathered  by  a  mighty  Past; 
But  were  our  race  accursed  (as  they  who  make 
Good  luck  a  god  count  all  unlucky  men) 
I  would  espouse  their  curse  sooner  than  take 
My  gifts  from  brethren  naked  of  all  good, 
And  lend  them  to  the  rich  for  usury. 

(FEDALMA  again  advances,  and  putting  forth  her  right 
hand  grasps  ZARCA'S  left.  He  places  his  other  hand  on 
her  shoulder.  They  stand  so,  looking  at  each  other.) 

ZARCA. 

And  you,  my  child  ?  are  you  of  other  mind, 
Choosing  forgetfulness,  hating  the  truth 


THE    SJi'AMHl    i.Yl'SY.  375 

That  says  you  are  akin  to  needy  men? — 
Wishing  your  father  were  some  Christian  Duke, 
Who  could  hang  Gypsies  when  their  task  was  done, 
While  you,  his  daughter,  were  not  bound  to  care? 

FEDALMA  (a'rc  a  troubled  eager  voice). 

No,  I  should  always  care — I  cared  for  you — 
For  all,  before  I  dreamed 

ZARCA. 

Before  you  dreamed 

That  you  were  born  a  Zincala — your  flesh 
Stamped  with  your  people's  faith. 

FEDALMA  (bitterly). 

The  Gypsies'  faith? 
Men  say  they  have  none. 

ZARCA. 

Oh,  it  is  a  faith 

Taught  by  no  priest,  but  by  their  beating  hearts; 
Faith  to  each  other;  the  fidelity 
Of  fellow  wanderers  in  a  desert  place 
Who  share  the  same  dire  thirst,  and  therefore  share 
The  scanty  water;  the  fidelity 
Of  men  whose  pulses  leap  with  kindred  fire, 
Who  in  the  flash  of  eyes,  the  clasp  of  hands, 
The  speech  that  even  in  lying  tells  the  truth 
Of  heritage  inevitable  as  birth, 
Nay,  in  the  silent  bodily  presence  feel 
The  mystic  stirring  of  a  common  life 
Which  makes  the  many  one;  fidelity 
To  the  consecrating  oath  our  sponsor  Fate 
Made  through  our  infant  breatn  when  wo  were  born 
The  fellow-heirs  of  that  small  island,  Life, 
Where  we  must  dig  and  sow  and  reap  with  brothers. 
Fear  thou  that  oath,  my  daughter — nay,  not  fear, 
But  love  it;  for  the  sanctity  of  oaths 
Lies  not  in  lightning  that  avenges  them, 
But  in  the  injury  wrought  by  broken  bonds 
And  in  the  garnered  good  of  human  trust. 
And  you  have  sworn — even  with  your  infant  breath 
You  too  were  pledged 


376  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

FEDALMA  (letting  go  ZARCA'S  hand,  and  sinking  back- 
ward on  her  knees,  with  bent  head,  as  if  before  some  im- 
pending crushing  weight). 

To  what?  what  have  I  sworn? 

ZARCA. 

To  take  the  heirship  of  the  Gypsy's  child; 

The  child  of  him  who,  being  chief,  will  be 

The  savior  of  his  tribe,  or  if  he  fail 

Will  choose  to  fail  rather  than  basely  win 

The  prize  of  renegades.     Nay  will  not  choose — 

Is  there  a  choice  for  strong  souls  to  be  weak? 

For  men  erect  to  crawl  like  hissing  snakes? 

I  choose  not — I  am  Zarca.     Let  him  choose 

Who  halts  and  wavers,  having  appetite 

To  feed  on  garbage.     You,  my  child — are  you 

Halting  and  wavering? 

FEDALMA  (raising  her  head). 

Say  what  is  my  task. 

ZAKCA. 

To  be  the  angel  of  a  homeless  tribe; 

To  help  me  bless  a  race  taught  by  no  prophet 

And  make  their  name,  now  but  a  badge  of  scorn, 

A  glorious  banner  floating  in  their  midst, 

Stirring  the  air  they  breathe  with  impulses 

Of  generous  pride,  exalting  fellowship 

Until  it  soars  to  magnanimity. 

I'll  guide  my  brethren  forth  to  their  new  land, 

Where  they  shall  plant  and  sow  and  reap  their  owfcj 

Serving  each  other's  needs,  and  so  be  spurred 

To  skill  in  all  the  arts  that  succor  life; 

Where  we  may  kindle  our  first  altar-fire 

From  settled  hearths,  and  call  our  Holy  Place 

The  hearth  that  binds  us  in  one  family. 

That  land  awaits  them;  they  await  their  chief — 

Me  who  am  prisoned.     All  depends  on  you. 

FEDALMA  (rising  to  her  full  height  and  looking  solemnly 
at  ZARCA). 

Father,  your  child  is  ready!     She  will  not 
Forsake  her  kindred;  she  will  brave  all  scorn 


THi:    SPA  N  ISM    t.YI'SY.  377 

Sooner  than  scorn  herself.     Let  Spaniards  all, 
Christians,  Jews,  Moors,  shoot  out  the  lip  and  say, 
"  Lo,  the  first  hero  in  a  tribe  of  thieves." 
Is  it  not  Avritten  so  of  them?    They,  too, 
Were  slaves,  lost,  wandering,  sunk  beneath  a  curse, 
Till  Moses,  Christ  and  Mahomet  were-  born, 
Till  beings  lonely  in  their  greatness  lived, 
And  lived  to  save  their  people.     Father,  listen. 
The  Duke  to-morrow  weds  me  secretly; 
But  straight  he  will  present  me  as  his  wife 
To  all  his  household,  cavaliers  and  dames 
And  noble  pages.     Then  I  will  declare 
Before  them  all,  "  I  am  his  daughter,  his, 
The  Gypsy's,  owner  of  this  golden  badge." 
Then  I  shall  win  your  freedom;  then  the  Duke — 
Why,  he  will  be  your  son! — will  send  you  forth 
With  aid  and  honors.     Then,  before  all  eyes 
I'll  clasp  this  badge  on  you,  and  lift  my  brow 
For  you  to  kiss  it,  saying  by  that  sign, 
'  I  glory  in  my  father/  *     This,  to-morrow. 

ZARCA. 

A  woman's  dream — who  thinks  by  smiling  well 
To  ripen  figs  in  frost.     What!  marry  first, 
And  then  proclaim  your  birth?    Enslave  yourself 
To  use  your  freedom?    Share  another's  name, 
Then  treat  it  as  you  will?     How  will  that  tune 
Ring  in  your  bridegroom's  ears — that  sudden  song 
Of  triumph  in  your  Gypsy  father? 

FEDALMA  (discouraged). 

Nay, 

I  meant  not  so.     We  marry  hastily — 
Yet  there  is  time — there  will  be: — in  less  space 
Than  he  can  take  to  look  at  me,  I'll  speak 
And  tell  him  all.     Oh,  I  am  not  afraid! 
His  love  for  me  is  stronger  than  all  hate; 
Nay,  stronger  than  my  love,  which  cannot  sway 
Demons  that  haunt  me — tempt  me  to  rebel. 
Were  he  Fedalma  and  I  Silva,  he 
Could  love  confession,  prayers,  and  tonsured  monks 
If  my  soul  craved  them.     He  will  never  hate 
The  race  that  bore  him  what  he  loves  the  most. 
I  shall  but  d<>  more  strongly  what  I  will, 


378  THE    SPANISH    GYiST. 

Having  his  will  to  help  me.     And  to-morrow, 
Father,  as  surely  as  this  heart  shall  beat, 
You — every  Gypsy  chained,  shall  be  set  free. 

ZAECA  (coming  nearer  to  her  and  laying  his  hand  on  her 
shoulder). 

Too  late,  too  poor  a  service  that,  my  child! 

Not  so  the  woman  who  would  save  her  tribe 

Must  help  its  heroes — not  by  wordy  breath, 

By  easy  prayers  strong  in  a  lover's  ear, 

By  showering  wreaths  and  sweets  and  wafted  kisses, 

And  then,  when  all  the  smiling  work  is  done, 

Turning  to  rest  upon  her  down  again, 

And  whisper  languid  pity  for  her  race 

Upon  the  bosom  of  her  alien  spouse. 

Not  to  such  petty  mercies  as  can  fall 

'Twixt  stitch  and  stitch  of  silken  broidery, 

Such  miracles  of  mitred  saints  who  pause 

Beneath  their  gilded  canopy  to  heal 

A  man  sun-stricken:  not  to  such  trim  merit 

As  soils  its  dainty  shoes  for  charity 

And  simpers  meekly  at  the  pious  stain, 

But  never  trod  with  naked  bleeding  feet 

Where  no  man  praised  it,  and  where  no  Church  blessed: 

Not  to  such  almsdeeds.  fit  for  holidays 

"Were  you,  my  daughter,  consecrated — bound 

By  laws  that,  breaking,  you  will  dip  your  bread 

In  murdered  brother's  blood  and  call  it  sweet — 

When  you  were  born  beneath  the  dark  man's  tent, 

And  lifted  up  in  sight  of  all  your  tribe, 

Who  greeted  you  with  shouts  of  loyal  joy, 

Sole  offspring  of  the  chief  in  whom  they' trust 

As  in  the  oft-tried  never-failing  flint 

They  strike  their  fire  from.     Other  work  is  yours, 

FEDALMA. 

« 

What  work? — what  is  it  that  you  ask  of  me? 

ZARCA. 

A  work  as  pregnant  as  the  act  of  men 

Who  set  their  ships  aflame  and  spring  to  land, 

A  fatal  deed 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  37U 

FEDALMA. 

Stay!  never  utter  it! 

If  it  can  part  my  lot  from  his  whose  love 
Has  chosen  me.     Talk  not  of  oaths,  of  birth, 
Of  men  as  numerous  as  the  dim  white  stars — 
As  cold  und  distant,  too,  for  my  heart's  pulse. 
No  ills  on  earth,  though  you  should  count  them  up 
With  grains  to  make  a  mountain,  can  outweigh 
For  me,  his  ill  who  is  my  supreme  love. 
All  sorrows  else  are  but  imagined  flames, 
Making  me  shudder  at  an  unfelt  smart; 
But  his  imagined  sorrow  is  a  fire 
That  scorches  me. 

ZARCA. 

I  know,  I  know  it  well — 

The  first  young  passionate  wail  of  spirits  called 
To  some  great  destiny.     In  vain,  my  daughter! 
Lay  the  young  eagle  in  what  nest  you  will, 
The  cry  and  swoop  of  eagles  overhead 
Vibrate  prophetic  in  its  kindred  frame, 
And  make  it  spread  its  wings  and  poise  itself 
For  the  eagle's  flight.     Hear  what  you  have  to  do. 

(FEDALMA  stands  half  averted,  as  if  she  dreaded  the  effect 
of  his  looks  and  words. ) 

My  comrades  even  now  file  off  their  chains 

In  a  low  turret  by  the  battlements, 

Where  we  were  locked  with  slight  and  sleepy  guard — 

We  who  had  files  hid  in  our  shaggy  hair, 

And  possible  ropes  that  waited  but  our  will 

In  half  our  garments.     Oh,  the  Moorish  blood 

Buns  thick  and  warm  to  us,  though  thinned  by  chrism. 

I  found  a  friend  am.,  ng  our  gaolers — one 

Who  loves  the  Gypsy  as  the  Moors  ally. 

I  know  the  secrets  of  this  fortress.     Listen. 

Hard  by  yon  terrace  is  a  narrow  stair, 

Cut  in  l-hc  living  rock,  and  at  one  point 

In  its  slow  straggling  course  it  branches  off 

Toward  a  low  wooden  door,  that  art  has  bossed 

To  such  uhevenness,  it  seems  one  piece 

With  the  rough-hewn  rock.     Open  that  door,  it  leads 

Through  a  broad  passage  burrowed  under-ground 

A  good  half  mile  out  to  the  open  plain: 


380  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Made  for  escape,  in  dire  extremity 
From  siege  or  burning,  of  the  house's  wealth 
In  women  or  in  gold.     To  find  that  door 
Needs  one  who  knows  the  number  of  the  steps 
Just  to  the  turning-point;  to  open  it, 
Needs  one  who  knows  the  secret  of  the  bolt. 
You  have  that  secret:  you  will  ope  that  door, 
And  fly  with  us. 

FED  ALMA  (receding  a  little,  and  gathering  herself  up  in  an 
attitude  of  resolve  opposite  to  ZAKCA.) 

No,  I  will  never  fly! 

Never  forsake  that  chief  half  of  my  soul 
Where  lies  my  love.     I  swear  to  set  you  free. 
Ask  for  no  more;  it  is  not  possible. 
Father,  my  soul  is  not  too  base  to  ring 
At  touch  of  your  great  thoughts;  nay,  in  my  blood 
There  streams  the  sense  unspeakable  of  kind, 
As  leopard  feels  at  ease  with  leopard.     But — 
Look  at  these  hands!    You  say  when  they  were  little 
They  played  about  the  gold  upon  your  neck. 
I  do  believe  it,  for  their  tiny  pulse 
Made  record  of  it  in  the  inmost  coil 
Of  growing  memory.     But  see  them  now! 
Oh,  they  have  made  fresh  record;  twined  themselves 
With  other  throbbing  hands  whose  pulses  feed 
Not  memories  only  but  a  blended  life — 
Life  that  will  bleed  to  death  if  it  be  severed. 
Have  pity  on  me,  father!     Wait  the  morning; 
Say  you  will  wait  the  morning.     I  will  win 
Your  freedom  openly:  you  shall  go  forth 
With  aid  and  honors.     Silva  will  deny 
Naught  to  my  asking 

ZAKCA  (with  contemptuous  decision). 

Till  you  ask  him  aught 
Wherein  he  is  powerless.     Soldiers  even  now 
Murmur  against  him  that  he  risks  the  town, 
And  forfeits  all  the  prizes  of  a  foray 
To  get  his  bridal  pleasure  with  a  bride 
Too  low  for  him.     They'll  murmur  more  and  louder 
If  captives  of  our  pith  and  sinew,  fit 
For  all  the  work  the  Spaniard  hates,  are  freed— 
Now,  too,  when  Spanish  hands  are  scanty.     What, 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Turn  Gypsies  loose  instead  of  hanging  them! 
'Tis  Hat  against  the  edict.     Nay,  perchance 
Murmurs  aloud  may  turn  to  silent  threats 
Of  some  well-sharpened  dagger;  for  your  Duke 
Has  to  his  heir  a  pious  cousin,  who  deems 
The  Cross  were  better  served  if  he  were  Duke. 
Such  good  you'll  work  your  lover  by  your  prayers. 

FEDALMA. 

Then,  I  will  free  you  now !    You  shall  be  safe, 
Nor  he  be  blamed,  save  for  his  love  to  me. 
I  will  declare  what  I  have  done:  the  deed 
May  put  our  marriage  off • 

ZABCA. 

Ay,  till  the  time 

When  you  shall  be  a  queen  in  Africa, 
And  he  be  prince  enough  to  sue  for  you. 
You  cannot  free  us  and  come  back  to  him. 

FEDALMA. 
And  why? 

ZARCA. 
I  would  compel  you  to  go  forth. 

FEDALMA. 
You  tell  me  that? 

ZARCA. 

Yes,  for  Fd  have  you  choose; 
Though,  being  of  the  blood  you  are — my  blood — 
You  have  no  right  to  choose. 

FEDALMA. 

I  only  owe 
A  daughter's  debt;  I  was  not  born  a  slave. 

ZARCA. 

No,  not  a  slave;  but  you  were  born  to  reign. 
'Tis  a  compulsion  of  a  higher  sort, 
Whose  fetters  are  the  net  invisible 


382  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

That  hold  all  life  together.     Eoyal  deeds 
May  make  long  destinies  for  multitudes, 
And  you  are  called  to  do  them.     You  belong 
Not  to  the  petty  round  of  circumstance 
That  makes  a  woman's  lot,  but  to  your  tribe, 
Who  trust  in  me  and  in  my  blood  with  trust 
That  men  call  blind;  Lut  it  is  only  blind 
As  unyeaned  reason  is,  that  grows  and  stirs 
Within  the  womb  of  superstition. 

FEDALMA. 

No! 

I  belong  to  him  who  loves  me — whom  I  love — 
Who  chose  me — whom  I  chose — to  whom  I  pledged 
A  woman's  truth.     And  that  is  nature  too, 
Issuing  a  fresher  law  than  laws  of  birth. 

ZARCA. 

Unmake  yourself,  then,  from  a  Zincala — 
Unmake  yourself  from  being  child  of  mine! 
Take  holy  water,  cross  your  dark  skin  white; 
Round  your  proud  eyes  to  foolish  kitten  looks; 
Walk  mincingly,  and  smirk,  and  twitch  your  robe: 
Unmake  yourself — doff  all  the  eagle  plumes 
And  be  a  parrot,  chained  to  a  ring  that  slips 
Upon  a  Spaniard's  thumb,  at  Avill  of  his 
That  you  should  prattle  o'er  his  words  again! 
Get  a  small  heart  that  nutters  at  the  smiles 
Of  that  plump  penitent,  that  greedy  saint 
Who  breaks  all  treaties  in  the  name  of  God, 
Saves  souls  by  confiscation,  sends  to  heaven 
The  altar  fumes  of  burning  heretics, 
And  chaffers  with  the  Levite  for  the  gold; 
Holds  Gypsies  beasts  unfit  for  sacrifice, 
So  sweeps  them  out  like  worms  alive  or  dead. 
Go,  trail  your  gold  and  velvet  in  her  court! — 
A  conscious  Zincala,  smile  at  your  rare  luck, 
While  half  your  brethren " 

FEDALMA. 

I  am  not  so  vile! 

It  is  not  to  such  mockeries  that  I  cling, 
Not  to  the  flaring  tow  of  gala-lights; 
It  is  to  him — my  love — the  face  of  day. 


THE  BPJJTIBB  «;VPSY.  383 

ZARCA. 

What,  will  you  part  him  from  the  air  he  breathes, 

Never  inhale  with  him  although  you  kiss  him? 

Will  you  adopt  a  soul  without  its  thoughts, 

Or  grasp  a  life  apart  from  flesh  and  blood? 

Till  then  you  cannot  wed  a  Spanish  Duke 

And  not  wed  shame  at  mention  of  your  race, 

And  not  wed  hardness  to  their  miseries — 

Nay,  not  wed  murder.     Would  you  save  my  life 

Yet  stab  my  purpose?  maim  my  every  limb, 

Put  out  my  eyes,  and  turn  me  loose  to  feed? 

Is  that  salvation?  rather  drink  my  blood. 

That  child  of  mine  who  weds  my  enemy — 

Adores  a  God  who  took  no  heed  of  Gypsies — 

Forsakes  her  people,  leaves  their  poverty 

To  join  the  luckier  crowd  that  mocks  their  woes — 

That  child  of  mine  is  doubly  murderess, 

Murdering  her  father's  hope,  her  people's  trust. 

Such  draughts  are  mingled  in  your  cup  of  love! 

And  when  you  have  become  a  thing  so  poor, 

Your  life  is  all  a  fashion  without  law 

Save  frail  conjecture  of  a  changing  wish, 

Your  worshiped  sun,  your  smiling  face  of  day, 

Will  turn  to  cloudiness,  and  you  will  shiver 

In  your  thin  finery  of  vain  desire. 

Men  call  his  passion  madness;  and  he,  too, 

May  learn  to  think  it  madness:  'tis  a  thought 

Of  ducal  sanity. 

FEDALMA. 

No,  he  is  true! 

And  if  I  part  from  him  I  part  from  joy. 
Oh,  it  was  morning  with  us — I  seemed  young. 
But  now  I  know  I  am  an  aged  sorrow — 
Mv  people's  sorrow.     Father,  since  I  am  yours — 
Since  I  must  walk  an  unslain  sacrifice, 
Carrying  the  knife  within  me,  quivering — 
Put  cords  upon  me,  drag  me  to  the  doom 
My  birth  has  laid  upon  me.     See,  I  kneel: 
I  cannot  will  to  go. 

ZARCA. 

Will  then  to  stay! 

Say  you  will  take  your  better  painted  such 
By  blind  desire,  and  choose  the  hideous  worse 


384  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

For  thousands  who  were  happier  but  for  yon. 
My  thirty  followers  are  assembled  now 
"Without  this  terrace:  I  your  father  wait 
That  you  may  lead  us  forth  to  liberty — 
Restore  me  to  my  tribe — five  hundred  men 
Whom  I  alone  can  save,  alone  can  rule, 
And  plant  them  as  a  mighty  nation's  seed. 
Why,  vagabonds  who  clustered  round  one  man, 
Their  voice  of  God,  their  prophet  and  their  king, 
Twice  grew  to  empire  on  the  teeming  shores 
Of  Africa,  and  sent  new  royalties 
To  feed  afresh  the  Arab  sway  in  Spain. 
My  vagabonds  are  a  seed  more  generous, 
Quick  as  the  serpent,  loving  as  the  hound, 
And  beautiful  as  disinherited  gods. 
They  have  a  promised  land  beyond  the  sea: 
There  I  may  lead  them,  raise  my  standard,  call 
The  wandering  Zincali  to  that  new  home, 
And  make  a  nation — bring  light,  order,  law, 
Instead  of  chaos.     You,  my  only  heir, 
Are  called  to,  reign  for  me  when  I  am  gone. 
Now  choose  your  deed :  to  save  or  to  destroy. 
You,  a  born  Zincala,  you,  fortunate 
Above  your  fellows — you  who  hold  a  curse 
Or  blessing  in  the  hollow  of  your  hand — 
Say  you  will  loose  that  hand  from  fellowship, 
Let  go  the  rescuing  rope,  hurl  all  the  tribes, 
Children  and  countless  beings  yet  to  come, 
Down  from  the  upward  path  of  light  and  joy, 
Back  to  the  dark  and  marshy  wilderness 
Where  life  is  naught  but  blind  tenacity 
Of  that  which  is.     Say  you  will  curse  your  race! 

TEDALMA  (rising  and  stretching  out  her  arms  in  depre- 
cation). 

No,  no — I  will  not  say  it — I  will  go! 
Father,  I  choose!     I  will  not  take  a  heaven 
Haunted  by  shrieks  of  far-off  misery. 
This  deed  and  I  have  ripened  with  the  hours: 
It  is  a  part  of  me — a  wakened  thought 
That,  rising  like  a  giant,  masters  me, 
And  grows  into  a  doom.     0  mother  life, 
That  seemed  to  nourish  me  so  tenderly, 
Even  in  the  womb  you  vowed  me  to  the  fire, 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  385 

Hung  on  my  soul  the  burden  of  men's  hopes, 
And  pledged  me  to  redeem  !  —  I'll  pay  the  debt. 
You  gave  me  strength  that  I  should  pour  it  all 
Into  this  anguish.     I  can  never  shrink 
Back  into  bliss  —  my  heart  has  grown  too.  big 
With  things  that  might  be.     Father,  I  will  go. 
I  will  strip  off  these  gems.     Some  happier  bride 
Shall  wear  them,  since  Fedalma  would  be  dowered 
With  naught  but  curses,  dowered  with  misery 
Of  men  —  of  women,  who  have  hearts  to  bleed 
As  hers  is  bleeding. 

(She  sinks  on  a  seat  and  begins  to  take  off  her  jewels.) 

Now,  good  gems,  we  part. 
Speak  of  me  always  tenderly  to  Silva. 


(She  pauses,  turning 

0  father,  will  the  women  of  our  tribe 

Suffer  as  1  do,  in  the  years  to  come 

When  you  have  made  them  great  in  Africa? 

Eedeemed  from  ignorant  ills  only  to  feel 

A  conscious  woe?     Then  —  is  it  worth  the  pains? 

Were  it  not  better  when  we  reach  that  shore 

To  raise  a  funeral-pile  and  perish  all, 

So  closing  up  a  myriad  avenues 

To  misery  yet  unwrought  ?     My  soul  is  faint  — 

Will  these  sharp  pangs  buy  any  certain  good? 

ZARCA. 

Nay,  never  falter:  no  great  deed  is  done 

By  falterers  who  ask  for  certainty. 

No  good  is  certain,  but  the  steadfast  mind, 

The  undivided  will  to  seek  the  good: 

'Tis  that  compels  the  elements,  and  wrings 

A  human  music  from  the  indifferent  air. 

The  greatest  gift  the  hero  leaves  his  race 

Is  to  have  been  a  hero.     Say  we  fail!  — 

We  feed  the  high  tradition  of  the  world, 

And  leave  our  spirit  in  our  children's  breasts. 

FEDALMA  (unclasping  her  jeweled  belt,  and  throwing  it 

doivri). 

Yes,  say  that  we  shall  fail!     I  will  not  count 
On  aught  but  being  faithful.     I  will  take 
25 


386  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

This  yearning  self  of  mine  and  strangle  it. 

I  will  not  be  half-hearted:  never  yet 

Fedalma  did  aught  with  a  wavering  soul. 

Die,  my  young  joy — die,  all  my  hungry  hopes — 

The  milk  you  cry  for  from  the  breast  of  life 

Is  thick  with  curses.     Oh,  all  fatness  here 

Snatches  its  meat  from  leanness — feeds  on  graves. 

I  will  seek  nothing  but  to  shun  base  joy. 

The  saints  were  cowards  who  stood  by  to  see 

Christ  crucified:  they  should  have  flung  themselves 

Upon  the  Eoman  spears,  and  died  in  vain— 

The  grandest  death,  to  die  in  vain — for  love 

Greater  than  sways  the  forces  of  the  world! 

That  death  shall  be  my  bridegroom.     I  will  wed 

The  curse  that  blights  my  people.     Father,  come! 

ZARCA. 

No  curse  has  fallen  on  us  till  we  cease 
To  help  each  other.     You,  if  you  are  false 
To  that  first  fellowship,  lay  on  the  curse. 
But  write  now  to  the  Spaniard:  briefly  say 
That  I,  your  father,  came;  that  you  obeyed 
The  fate  which  made  you  a  Zincala,  as  his  fate 
Made  him  a  Spanish  duke  and  Christian  knight. 
He  must  not  think 

FEDALMA. 

Yes,  I  will  write,  hut  he — 
Oh,  he  would  know  it — he  would  never  think 
The  chain  that  dragged  me  from  him  could  be  aught 
But  scorching  iron  entering  in  my  soul. 

(She  writes.) 

Silva,  sole  love — he  came — my  father  came. 
I  am  the  daughter  of  the  Gypsy  chief 
Who  means  to  be  the  Savior  of  our  tribe. 
He  calls  on  me  to  live  for  his  great  end. 
To  live?  nay,  die  for  it.     Fedalma  dies 
In  leaving  Silva :  all  that  lives  henceforth 
Is  the  poor  Zincala. 

(She  rises.) 

Father,  now  I  go 
To  wed  my  people's  lot. 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  387 

ZARCA. 

To  wed  a  crown. 

Our  people's  lowly  lot  we  will  make  royal — 
Give  it  a  country,  homes,  and  monuments 
Held  sacred  through  the  lofty  memories 
That  we  shall  leave  behind  us.     Come,  my  Queen! 

FEDALMA. 

Stay,  my  betrothal  ring! — one  kiss — farewell! 
0  love,  you  were  my  crown.  No  other  crown 
Is  aught  but  thorns  on  my  poor  woman's  brow. 


BOOK  II. 

SILVA  was  marching  homeward  while  the  moon 

Still  shed  mild  brightness  like  the  far-off  hope 

Of  those  pale  virgin  lives  that  wait  and  pray. 

The  stars  thin-scattered  made  the  heavens  large, 

Bending  in  slow  procession;  in  the  east 

Emergent  from  the  dark  waves  of  the  hills, 

Seeming  a  little  sister  of  the  moon, 

Glowed  Venus  all  unquenched.     Silva,  in  haste, 

Exultant  and  yet  anxious,  urged  his  troop 

To  quick  and  quicker  march:  he  had  delight 

In  forward  stretching  shadows,  in  the  gleams 

That  traveled  on  the  armor  of  the  van, 

And  in  the  many-hoofed  sound:  in  all  that  told 

Of  hurrying  movement  to  o'ertake  his  thought 

Already  in  Bed  mar,  close  to  Fedalma, 

Leading  her  forth  a  wedded  bride,  fast  vowed, 

Defying  Father  Isidor.     His  glance 

Took  in  with  much  content  the  priest  who  rode 

Firm  in  his  saddle,  stalwart  and  broad-backed,       ^ 

Crisp-curled,  and  comfortably  secular, 

Right  in  the  front  of  him.     But  by  degrees 

Stealthily  faint,  disturbing  with  slow  loss 

That  showed  not  yet  full  promise  of  a  gain, 

The  light  was  changing,  and  the  watch  intense 

Of  moon  and  stars  seemed  weary,  shivering: 

The  sharp  white  brightness  passed  from  off  the  rocks 

Carrying  the  shadows:  beauteous  Night  lay  (load 


388  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Under  the  pall  of  twilight,  and  the  love-star 

Sickened  and  shrank.     The  troop  was  winding  now 

Upward  to  where  a  pass  between  the  peaks 

Seemed  like  an  opened  gate — to  Silva  seemed 

An  outer  gate  of  heaven,  for  through  that  pass 

They  entered  his  own  valley,  near  Bedmar. 

Sudden  within  the  pass  a  horseman  rose, 

One  instant  dark  upon  the  banner  pale 

Of  rock-cut  sky,  the  next  in  motion  swift 

With  hat  and  plume  high-shaken — ominous. 

Silva  had  dreamed  his  future,  and  the  dream 

Held  not  this  messenger.     A  minute  more — 

It  was  his  friend  Don  Alvar  whom  he  saw 

Reining  his  horse  up,  face  to  face  with  him, 

Sad  as  the  twilight,  all  his  clothes  ill-girt — 

As  if  he  had  been  roused  to  see  one  die, 

And  brought  the  news  to  him  whom  death  had  robbed. 

Silva  believed  he  saw  the  worst — the  town 

Stormed  by  the  infidel — or,  could  it  be 

Fedalma  dragged? — no,  there  was  not  yet  time. 

But  with  a  marble  face,  he  only  said, 

"What  evil,  Alvar?" 

"  What  this  paper  speaks." 
It  was  Fedalma's  letter  folded  close 
And  mute  as  yet  for  Silva.     But  his  friend 
Keeping  it  still  sharp-pinched  against  his  breast, 

"It  will  smite  hard,  my  lord:  a  private  grief. 
I  would  not  have  you  pause  to  read  it  here. 

•   Let  us  ride  on — we  use  the  moments  best, 
Reaching  the  town  with  speed.     The  smaller  ill 
Is  that  our  Gypsy  prisoners  have  escaped." 

"No  more.     Give  me  the  paper — nay,  I  know — 
'Twill  make  no  difference.    Bid  them  march  on  faster.* 
Silva  pushed  forward — held  the  paper  crushed 
Close  to  his  right.     "  They  have  imprisoned  her," 
He  said  to  Alvar  in  low,  hard-cut  tones, 

/  Like  a  dream-speech  of  slumbering  revenge. 

'No — when  they  came  to  fetch  her  she  was  gone." 
Swift  as  the  right  touch  on  a  spring,  that  word 
Made  Silva  read  the  letter.     She  was  gone ! 
But  not  into  locked  darkness — only  gone 
Into  free  air — where  he  might  find  her  yet. 
The  bitter  loss  had  triumph  in  it — what! 
They  would  have  seized  her  with  their  holy  claws 
The  Prior's  sweet  morsel  of  despotic  hate 


THE    M'AMMl    GYPSY.  389 

Was  snatched  from  off  his  lips.     This  misery 
Had  yet  a  taste  of  joy. 

But  she  was  gone! 

The  sun  had  risen,  and  in  the  castle  walls 
The  light  grew  strong  and  stronger.     Silva  walked 
Through  the  long  corridor  where  dimness  yet 
Cherished  a  lingering,  flickering,  dying  hope: 
Fedalma  still  was  there — he  could  not  see 
The  vacant  place  that  once  her  presence  filled. 
Can  we  believe  that  the  dear  dead  are  gone? 
Love  in  sad  weeds  forgets  the  funeral  day, 
Opens  the  chamber  door  and  almost  smiles — 
Then  sees  the  sunbeams  pierce  athwart  the  bed 
Where  the  pale  face  is  not.     So  Silva's  joy, 
Like  the  sweet  habit  of  caressing  hands 
That  seek  the  memory  of  another  hand, 
Still  lived  on  fitfully  in  spite  of  words, 
And,  numbing  thought  with  vague  illusion,  dulled 
The  slow  and  steadfast  beat  of  certainty. 
But  in  the  rooms  inexorable  light 
Streamed  through  the  open  window  where  she  fled, 
Streamed  on  the  belt  and  coronet  thrown  down — 
Mute  witnesses — sought  out  the  typic  ring 
That  sparkled  on  the  crimson,  solitary, 
Wounding  him  like  a  word.     0  hateful  light! 
It  filled  the  chambers  with  her  absence,  glared 
On  all  the  motionless  things  her  hand  had  touched, 
Motionless  all — save  where  old  Inez  lay 
Sunk  on  the  floor  holding  her  rosary, 
Making  its  shadow  tremble  with  her  fear. 
And  Silva  passed  her  by  because  she  grieved : 
It  was  the  lute,  the  gems,  the  pictured  heads, 
He  longed  to  crush,  because  they  made  no  sign 
But  of  insistence  that  she  was  not  there, 
She  who  had  filled  his  sight  and  hidden  them. 
He  went  forth  on  the  terrace  tow'rd  the  stairs, 
Saw  the  rained  petals  of  the  cistus  flowers 
Crushed  by  large  feet;  but  on  one  shady  spot 
Far  down  the  steps,  where  dampness  made  a  home, 
He  saw  a  footprint  delicate-slippered,  small, 
So  dear  to  him,  he  searched  for  sister-prints, 
Searched  in  the  rock-hcun  passage  with  a  lamp 
For  other  trace  of  her,  and  found  a  glove; 
But  not  Fedalma's.     It  was  Juan's  glove, 
Tasseled,  perfumed,  embroidered  with  his  name, 


390  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

A  gift  of  dames.     Then  Juan,  too,  was  gone? 

Full-mouthed  conjecture,  hurrying  through  the  town, 

Had  spread  the  tale  already:  it  was  he 

That  helped  the  Gypsies'  flight.     He  talked  and  sang 

Of  nothing  but  the  Gypsies  and  Fedalma. 

He  drew  the  threads  together,  wove  the  plan; 

Had  lingered  out  by  moonlight,  had  been  seen 

Strolling,  as  was  his  wont,  within  the  walls, 

Humming  his  ditties.     So  Don  Alvar  told, 

Conveying  outside  rumor.     But  the  Duke, 

Making  of  haughtiness  a  visor  closed, 

Would  show  no  agitated  front  in  quest 

Of  small  disclosures.     What  her  writing  bore 

Had  been  enough.     He  knew  that  she  was  gone, 

Knew  why. 

' '  The  Duke,"  some  said,  "  will  send  a  force, 
Betake  the  prisoners,  and  bring  back  his  bride." 
But  others,  winking,  "Nay,  her  wedding  dress 
Would  be  the  san-benito.     'Tis  a  fight 
Between  the  Duke  and  Prior.     Wise  bets  .will  choose 

The  churchman:  he's  the  iron,  and  the  Duke " 

"Is  a  fine  piece  of  pottery,"  said  mine  host, 
Softening  the  sarcasm  with  a  bland  regret. 

There  was  the  thread  that  in  the  new-made  knot 

Of  obstinate  circumstance  seemed  hardest  drawn, 

Vexed  most  the  sense  of  Silva,  in  these  hours 

Of  fresh  and  angry  pain — there,  in  that  fight 

Against  a  foe  whose  sword  was  magical, 

His  shield  invisible  terrors — against  a  foe 

Who  stood  as  if  upon  the  smoking  mount 

Ordaining  plagues.     All  else,  Fedalma's  flight, 

The  father's  claim,  her  Gypsy  birth  disclosed, 

Were  momentary  crosses,  hindrances 

A  Spanish  noble  might  despise.     This  Chief 

Might  still  be  treated  with,  would  not  refuse 

A  proffered  ransom,  which  would  better  serve 

Gypsy  prosperity,  give  him  more  power 

Over  his  tribe,  than  any  fatherhood: 

Nay,  all  the  father  in  him  must  plead  loud 

For  marriage  of  his  daughter  where  she  loved — 

Her  love  being  placed  so  high  and  lustrously. 

The  gypsy  chieftain  had  foreseen  a  price 

That  would  be  paid  him  for  his  daughter's  dower— * 

Might  soon  give  signs.     Oh,  all  his  purpose  lay 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  391 

Face  upward.     Silva  here  felt  strong,  and  smiled. 

What  could  a  Spanish  noble  not  command? 

He  only  helped  the  Queen,  because  he  chose; 

Could  war  on  Spaniards,  and  could  spare  the  Moor; 

Buy  justice,  or  defeat  it — if  he  would: 

Was  loyal,  not  from  weakness  but  from  strength 

Of  high  resolve  to  use  his  birthright  well. 

For  nobles  too  are  gods,  like  Emperors, 

Accept  perforce  their  own  divinity, 

And  wonder  at  the  virtue  of  their  touch, 

Till  obstinate  resistance  shakes  their  creed, 

Shattering  that  self  whose  wholeness  is  not  rounded 

Save  in  the  plastic  souls  of  other  men. 

Don  Silva  has  been  suckled  in  that  creed 

(A  high-taught  speculative  noble  else), 

Held  it  absurd  as  foolish  argument 

If  any  failed  in  deference,  was  too  proud 

Not  to  be  courteous  to  so  poor  a  knave 

As  one  who  knew  not  necessary  truths 

Of  birth  and  dues  of  rank;  but  cross  his  will, 

The  miracle-working  will,  his  rage  leaped  out 

As  by  a  right  divine  to  rage  more  fatal 

Than  a  mere  mortal  man's.     And  now  that  will 

Had  met  a  stronger  adversary — strong 

As  awful  ghosts  are  whom  we  cannot  touch, 

While  they  clutch  us,  subtly  as  poisoned  air, 

In  deep-laid  fibres  of  inherited  fear 

That  lie  below  all  courage. 

Silva  said, 

She  is  not  lost  to  me,  might  still  be  mine 
But  for  the  Inquisition — the  dire  hand 
That  waits  to  clutch  her  with  a  hideous  grasp 
Not  passionate,  human,  living,  but  a  grasp 
As  in  the  death-throe  when  the  human  soul 
Departs  and  leaves  force  unrelenting,  locked, 
Not  to  be  loosened  save  by  slow  decay 
That  frets  the  universe.     Father  Isidor 
Has  willed  it  so:  his  phial  dropped  the  oil 
To  catch  the  air-borne  motes  of  idle  slander; 
He  fed  the  fascinated  gaze  that  clung 
Round  all  her  movements,  frank  as  growths  of  spring, 
With  the  new  hateful  interest  of  suspicion. 
What  barrier  is  this  Gypsy?  a  mere  gate 
I'll  find  the  key  for.     The  one  barrier, 
The  tightening  cord  that  winds  about  my  limbs, 


392  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Is  this  kind  uncle,  this  imperious  saint, 

He  who  will  save  me,  guard  me  from  myself. 

And  he  can  work  his  will:  I  have  no  help 

Save  reptile  secrecy,  and  no  revenge 

Save  that  I  will  do  what  he  schemes  to  hinder. 

Ay,  secrecy,  and  disobedience — these 

No  tyranny  can  master.     Disobey! 

You  may  divide  the  universe  with  God, 

Keeping  your  will  unbent,  and  hold  a  world 

Where  he  is  not  supreme.     The  Prior  shall  know  it! 

His  will  shall  breed  resistance:  he  shall  do 

The  thing  he  would  not,  further  what  he  hates 

By  hardening  my  resolve." 

But  'neath  this  speech — 
Defiant,  hectoring,  the  more  passionate  voice 
Of  many-blended  consciousness — there  breathed 
Murmurs  of  doubt,  the  weakness  of  a  self 
That  is  not  one;  denies  and  yet  believes; 
Protests  with  passion,  "  This  is  natural" — 
Yet  owns  the  other  still  were  truer,  better, 
Could  nature  follow  it:  a  self  disturbed 
By  budding  growths  of  reason  premature 
That  breed  disease.     With  all  his  out-flung  rage 
Silva  half  shrank  before  the  steadfast  man 
Whose  life  was  one  compacted  whole,  a  realm 
Where  the  rule  changed  not,  and  the  law  was  strong. 
Then  that  reluctant  homage  stirred  new  hate, 
And  gave  rebellion  an  intenser  will. 

But  soon  this  inward  strife  the  slow-paced  hours 

Slackened;  and  the  soul  sank  with  hunger-pangs, 

Hunger  of  love.     Debate  was  swept  right  down 

By  certainty  of  loss  intolerable. 

A  little  loss!  only  a  dark-tressed  maid 

Who  had  no  heritage  save  her  beauteous  being! 

But  in  the  candor  of  her  virgin  eyes 

Saying,  I  love;  and  in  the  mystic  charm 

Of  her  dear  presence,  Silva  found  a  heaven 

Where  faith  and  hope  were  drowned  as  stars  in  day. 

Fedalma  there,  each  momentary  Now 

Seemed  a  whole  blest  existence,  a  full  cup 

That,  flowing  over,  asked  no  pouring  hand 

From  past  to  future.     All  the  world  was  hers. 

Splendor  was  but  the  herald  trumpet-note 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  393 

Of  her  imperial  coming;  penury 

Vanished  before  her  as  before  a  gem, 

The  pledge  of  treasuries.     Fedalma  there, 

He  thought  all  loveliness  was  lovelier, 

She  crowning  it;  all  goodness  credible, 

Because  of  that  great  trust  her  goodness  bred. 

For  the  strong  current  of  the  passionate  love 

Which  urged  his  life  toward  hers,  like  urgent  floods 

That  hurry  through  the  various-mingled  earth, 

Carried  within  its  stream  all  qualities 

Of  what  it  penetrated,  and  made  love 

Only  another  name,  as  Silva  was, 

For  the  whole  man  that  breathed  within  his  frame. 

And  she  was  gone.     Well,  goddesses  will  go; 

But  for  a  noble  there  were  mortals  left 

Shaped  just  like  goddesses — 0  hateful  sweet! 

0  impudent  pleasure  that  should  dare  to  front 

With  vulgar  visage  memories  divine! 

The  noble's  birthright  of  miraculous  will 

Turning  /  would  to  must  be,  spurning  all 

Offered  as  substitute  for  what  it  chose, 

Tightened  and  fixed  in  strain  irrevocable 

The  passionate  selection  of  that  love 

Which  came  not  first  but  as  all-conquering  last. 

Great  Love  has  many  attributes,  and  shrines 

For  varied  worship,  but  his  force  divine 

Shows  most  its  many-named  fullness  in  the  man 

Whose  nature  multitudinously  mixed — 

Each  ardent  impulse  grappling  with  a  thought — 

Kesists  all  easy  gladness,  all  content 

Save  mystic  rapture,  where  the  questioning  soul 

Flooded  with  consciousness  of  good  that  is 

Finds  life  one  bounteous  answer.     So  it  was 

In  Silva's  nature,  Love  had  mastery  there, 

Not  as  a  holiday  ruler,  but  as  one 

Who  quells  a  tumult  in  a  day  of  dread, 

A  welcomed  despot. 

0  all  comforters, 

All  soothing  things  that  bring  mild  ecstasy, 
Came  with  her  coming,  in  her  presence  lived. 
Spring  afternoons,  when  delicate  shadows  fall 
Penciled  upon  the  grass;  high  summer  morns 
When  white  light  rains  upon  the  quiet  sea 
And  corn-fields  flush  with  ripeness;  odors  soft- 
Dumb  vagrant  bliss  that  seems  to  seek  a  home. 


394  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

And  find  it  deep  within,  'mid  stirrings  vague 

Of  far-off  moments  when  our  life  was  fresh; 

All  sweetly-tempered  music,  gentle  change 

Of  sound,  form,  color,  as  on  wide  lagoons 

At  sunset  when  from  black  far-floating  prows 

Comes  a  clear  wafted  song;  all  exquisite  joy 

Of  a  subdued  desire,  like  some  strong  stream 

Made  placid  in  the  fullness  of  a  lake — 

All  came  with  her  sweet  presence,  for  she  brought 

The  love  supreme  which  gathers  to  its  realm 

All  powers  of  loving.     Subtle  nature's  hand 

Waked  with  a  touch  the  far-linked  harmonies 

In  her  own  manifold  work.     Fedalma  there, 

Fastidiousness  became  the  prelude  fine 

For  full  contentment;  and  young  melancholy, 

Lost  for  its  origin,  seemed  but  the  pain 

Of  waiting  for  that  perfect  happiness. 

The  happiness  was  gone! 

He  sat  alone, 

Hating  companionship  that  was  not  hers; 
Felt  bruised  with  hopeless  longing;  drank,  as  wine, 
Illusions  of  what  had  been,  would  have  been; 
Weary  with  anger  and  a  strained  resolve, 
Sought  passive  happiness  in  waking  dreams. 
It  has  been  so  with  rulers,  emperors, 
Nay,  sages  who  held  secrets  of  great  Time, 
Sharing  his  hoary  and  beneficent  life — 
Men  who  sat  throned  among  the  multitudes — 
They  have  sore  sickened  at  the  loss  of  one. 
Silva  sat  lonely  in  her  chamber,  leaned 
Where  she  had  leaned,  to  feel  the  evening  breath 
Shed  from  the  orange  trees;  when  suddenly 
His  grief  was  echoed  in  a  sad  young  voice 
Far  and  yet  near,  brought  by  aerial  wings. 

The  world  is  great;  the  birds  all  fly  from  me, 
The  stars  are  golden  fruit  upon  a  tree 
All  out  of  reach;  my  little  sister  went, 
And  I  am  lonely. 

The  world  is  great;  I  tried  to  mount  the  hill 
Above  the  pines,  where  the  light  lies  so  still, 
But  it  rose  higher;  little  Lisa  went, 
And  I  am  lonely. 


THE    SI'ANLSII    GYl'SY.  3'J5 

The  world  is  great;  the  wind  comes  rushing  by, 
I  wonder  where  it  comes  from;  sea-birds  cry 
And  hurt  my  heart;  my  little  sister  went, 
And  I  am  lonely. 

The  world  is  great;  the  people  laugh  and  talk, 
And  make  loud  holiday;  how  fast  they  walk! 
I'm  lame,  they  push  me;  little  Lisa  went, 
And  I  am  lonely. 

'Twas  Pablo,  like  the  wounded  spirit  of  song 

Pouring  melodious  pain  to  cheat  the  hour 

For  idle  soldiers  in  the  castle  court. 

Dreamily  Silva  heard  and  hardly  felt 

The  song  was  outward,  rather  felt  it  part 

Of  his  own  aching,  like  the  lingering  day, 

Or  slow  and  mournful  cadence  of  the  bell. 

But  when  the  voice  had  ceased  he  longed  for  it, 

And  fretted  at  the  pause,  as  memory  frets 

When  words  that  made  its  body  fall  away 

And  leave  it  yearning  dumbly.     Silva  then 

Bethought  him  whence  the  voice  came,  framed  perforce 

Some  outward  image  of  a  life  not  his 

That  mado  a  sorrowful  center  to  the  world: 

A  boy  lame,  melancholy-eyed,  who  bore 

A  viol  —  yes,  that  very  child  he  saw 

This  morning  eating  roots  by  the  gateway  —  saw 

As  one  fresh-ruined  sees  and  spells  a  name 

And  knows  not  what  he  does,  yet  finds  it  writ 

Full  in  the  inner  record.     Hark,  again! 

The  voice  and  viol.     Silva  called  his  thought 

To  guide  his  ear  and  track  the  traveling  sound. 

0  bird  that  used  to  press 
Thy  head  against  my  cheek 
With  touch  that  seemed  to  speak 

And  ask  a  tender  "yes"  — 

Ay  de  mi,  my  bird! 


0  tender  downy 
And  warmly  beating  heart, 
That  bi'ttfiiiij  *!'•••  ini-il  apart 

Of  me  who  gave  it  rest  — 

Ay  de  mi,  my  bird! 


396  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

The  western  court!     The  singer  might  be  seen 
From  the  upper  gallery:  quick  the  Duke  was  there 
Looking  upon  the  court  as  on  a  stage. 
Men  eased  of  armor,  stretched  upon  the  ground, 
Gambling  by  snatches;  shepherds  from  the  hills 
Who  brought  their  bleating  friends  for  slaughter; 

grooms 

Shouldering  loose  harness;  leather-aproned  smiths, 
Traders  with  wares,  green-suited  serving-men, 
Made  a  round  audience;  and  in  their  midst 
Stood  little  Pablo,  pouring  fortli  his  song, 
Just  as  the  Duke  had  pictured.     But  the  song 
Was  strangely  'companied  by  Roldan's  play 
With  the  swift  gleaming  balls,  and  now  was  crushed 
By  peals  of  laughter  at  grave  Anuibal, 
Who  carrying  stick  and  purse  overturned  the  pence, 
Making  mistake  by  rule.     Silva  had  thought 
To  melt  hard  bitter  grief  by  fellowship 
With  the  world-sorrow  trembling  in  his  ear 
In  Pablo's  voice;  had  meant  to  give  command 
For  the  boy's  presence;  but  this  company, 
This  mountebank  and  monkey,  must  be — stay! 
Not  be  excepted — must  be  ordered  too 
Into  his  private  presence;  they  had  brought 
Suggestion  of  a  ready  shapen  tool 
To  cut  a  path  between  his  helpless  wish 
And  what  it  imaged.     A  ready  shapen  tool! 
A  spy,  an  envoy  whom  he  might  dispatch 
In  unsuspected  secrecy,  to  find 
The  Gypsies'  refuge  so  that  none  beside 
Might  learn  it.     And  this  juggler  could  be  bribed, 
Would  have  no  fear  of  Moors — for  who  would  kill 
Dancers  and  monkeys? — could  pretend  a  journey 
Back  to  his  home,  leaving  his  boy  the  while 
To  please  the  Duke  with  song.  Without  such  chance — 
An  envoy  cheap  and  secret  as  a  mole 
Who  could  go  scatheless,  come  back  for  his  pay 
And  vanish  straight,  tied  by  no  neighborhood — 
Without  such  chance  as  this  poor  juggler  brought, 
Finding  Fedalma  was  betraying  her. 

Short  interval  betwixt  the  thought  and  deed. 
Roldan  was  called  to  private  audience 
With  Annibal  and  Pablo.     All  the  world 
(By  which  I  mean  the  score  or  two  who  heard) 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  M!l7 

Shrugged  high  their  shoulders,  and  supposed  the  Duke 

Won  id  t'u in  beguile  the  evening  and  replace 

His  lacking  happiness,  as  was  the  right 

Of  nobles,  who  could  pay  for  any  cure, 

And  wore  naught  broken,  save  a  broken  limb. 

In  truth,  at  first,  the  Duke  bade  Pablo  sing, 

But,  while  he  sang,  called  Roldan  wide  apart, 

And  told  him  of  a  mission  secret,  brief — 

A  quest  which  well  performed  might  earn  much  gold, 

But,  if  betrayed,  another  sort  of  pay. 

Roldan  was  ready;  "  wished  above  all  for  gold 

And  never  wished  to  speak;  had  worked  enough 

At  wagging  his  old  tongue  and  chiming  jokes; 

Thought  it  was  others'  turn  to  play  the  fool. 

Give  him  but  pence  enough,  no  rabbit,  sirs, 

Would  eat  and  stare  and  be  more  dumb  than  he. 

Give  him  his  orders." 

They  were  given  straight; 
Gold  for  the  journey  and  to  buy  a  mule 
Outside  the  gates  through  which  he  was  to  pass 
Afoot  and  carelessly.     The  boy  would  stay 
Within  the  castle,  at  the  Duke's  command, 
And  must  have  naught  but  ignorance  to  betray 
For  threats  or  coaxing.     Once  the  quest  performed, 
The  news  delivered  with  some  pledge  of  truth 
Safe  to  the  Duke,  the  juggler  should  go  forth, 
A  fortune  in  his  girdle,  take  his  boy 
And  settle  firm  as  any  planted  tree 
In  fair  Valencia,  never  more  to  roam. 
:Good!  good!  most  worthy  of  a  great  hidalgo! 
And  Roldan  was  the  man!     But  Annibal — 
A  monkey  like  no  other,  though  morose 
In  private  character,  yet  full  of  tricks — 
'Twere  hard  to  carry  him,  yet  harder  still 
To  leave  the  boy  and  him  in  company 
And  free  to  slip  away.     The  boy  was  wild 
And  shy  as  mountain  kid;  once  hid  himself 
And  tried  to  run  away;  and  Annibal, 
Who  always  took  the  lad's  side  (he  was  small, 
And  they  were  nearer  of  a  size,  and,  sirs, 
Your  monkey  has  a  spite  against  us  men 
For  being  bigger) — Annibal  went  too. 
Would  hardly  know  himself,  were  he  to  lose 
Both  boy  and  monkey — and  't\vas  property, 
The  trouble  he  had  put  in  Annibal. 


398  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

He  didn't  choose  another  man  should  beat 

His  boy  and  monkey.     If  they  ran  away 

Some  man  would  snap  them  up,  and  square  himself 

And  say  they  were  his  goods — he'd  taught  them — no! 

He  Koldan  had  no  mind  another  man 

Should  fatten  by  his  monkey,  and  the  boy 

Should  not  be  kicked  by  any  pair  of  sticks 

Calling  himself  a  juggler " 

But  the  Duke, 

Tired  of  that  hammering,  signed  that  it  should  cease; 
Bade  Roldan  quit  all  fears — the  boy  and  ape 
Should  be  safe  lodged  in  Abderahman's  tower, 
In  keeping  of  the  great  physician  there, 
The  Duke's  most  special  confidant  and  friend, 
One  skilled  in  taming  brutes,  and  always  kind. 
The  Duke  himself  this  eve  would  see  them  lodged. 
Roldan  must  go — spend  no  more  words — but  go. 

The  Astrologer's  Study. 

A  room  high  up  in  Abderahman's  tower, 

A  window  open  to  the  still  warm  eve, 

And  the  bright  disc  of  royal  Jupiter. 

Lamps  burning  low  make  little  atmospheres 

Of  light  amid  the  dimness;  here  and  there 

Show  books  and  phials,  stones  and  instruments. 

In  carved  dark-oaken  chair,  unpillowed,  sleeps 

Right  in  the  rays  of  Jupiter  a  small  man, 

In  skull-cap  bordered  close  with  crisp  gray  curls, 

And  loose  black  gown  showing  a  neck  and  breast 

Protected  by  a  dim-green  amulet; 

Pale-faced,  with  finest  nostril  wont  to  breathe 

Ethereal  passion  in  a  world  of  thought; 

Eye-brows  jet-black  and  firm,  yet  delicate; 

Beard  scant  and  grizzled;  mouth  shut  firm,  with  curves 

So  subtly  turned  to  meanings  exquisite, 

You  seem  to  read  them  as  you  read  a  word 

Full-voweled,  long-descended,  pregnant — rich 

With  legacies  from  long,  laborious  lives. 

Close  by  him,  like  a  genius  of  sleep, 

Purs  the  gray  cat,  bridling,  with  snowy  breast. 

A  loud  knock.     "Forward!"  in  clear  vocal  ring. 

Enter  the  Duke,  Pablo,  and  Annibal 

Exit  the  cat,  retreating  toward  the  dark. 


THE  SPANISH  (JYI»>V.  3'.)!) 

DON  SILVA. 
You  slept,  Sephardo.     I  am  come  too  soon. 

SEPHARDO. 

Nay,  my  lord,  it  was  I  who  slept  too  long. 
I  go  to  court  among  the  stars  to-night, 
So  bathed  my  soul  beforehand  in  deep  sleep. 
But  who  are  these? 

DON  SILVA.  ' 

Small  guests,  for  whom  I  ask 
Your  hospitality.     Their  owner  comes 
Some  short  time  hence  to  claim  them.     I  am  pledged 
To  keep  them  safely;  so  I  bring  them  you, 
Trusting  your  friendship  for  small  animals. 

SEPHARDO. 
Yea,  am  not  I  too  a  small  animal? 

DON  SILVA. 

I  shall  be  much  beholden  to  your  love 
If  you  will  be  their  guardian.     I  can  trust 
No  other  man  so  well  as  you.     The  boy 
Will  please  you  with  his  singing,  touches  too 
The  viol  wondrously. 


Their  names  are 


SEPHARDO. 

They  are  welcome  both. 


DON  SILVA. 

Pablo,  this — this  Annibal, 
And  yet,  I  hope,  no  warrior. 

SEPHARDO. 

We'll  make  peace. 

Come,  Pablo,  let  us  loosen  our  friend's  chain. 
Deign  you,  my  lord,  to  sit.     Here  Pablo,  thou- 
Close  to  my  chair.     Now  Annibal  shall  choose. 

[The  cautious  monkey,  in  a  Moorish  dress, 
A  tunic  white,  turban  and  scimiter. 


400  THE  SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Wears  these  stage  garments,  nay,  his  very  flesh 

With  silent  protest;  keeps  a  neutral  air 

As  aiming  at  ametaphysic  state 

'Twixt  "is"  and  "is  not";  lets  his  chain  be  loosed 

By  sage  Sephardo's  hands,  sits  still  at  first, 

Then  trembles  out  of  his  neutrality, 

Looks  up  and  leaps  into  Sephardo's  lap, 

And  chatters  forth  his  agitated  soul, 

Turning  to  peep  at  Pablo  on  the  floor.] 

SEPHARDO. 
See,  he  declares  we  are  at  amity! 

DON  SILVA. 
No  brother  sage  had  read  your  nature  faster. 

SEPHARDO. 

Why,  so  he  is  a  brother  sage.     Man  thinks 
Brutes  have  no  wisdom,  since  they  know  not  his: 
Can  we  divine  their  world? — the  hidden  life 
That  mirrors  us  as  hideous  shapeless  power, 
Cruel  supremacy  of  sharp-edged  death, 
Or  fate  that  leaves  a  bleeding  mother  robbed? 
Oh,  they  have  long  tradition  and  swift  speech, 
Can  tell  with  touches  and  sharp  darting  cries 
Whole  histories  of  timid  races  taught 
To  breathe  in  terror  by  red-handed  man. 

DON  SILVA.. 

Ah,  you  denounce  my  sport  with  hawk  and  hound. 

I  would  not  have  the  angel  Gabriel 

As  hard  as  you  in  noting  down  my  sins. 

SEPHARDO. 

Nay,  they  are  virtues  for  you  warriors — 
Hawking  and  hunting!     You  are  merciful 
When  you  leave  killing  men  to  kill  the  brutes. 
But,  for  the  point  of  wisdom,  I  would  choose 
To  know  the  mind  that  stirs  between  the  wings 
Of  bees  and  building  wasps,  or  fills  the  woods 
With  myriad  murmurs  of  responsive  sense 
And  true-aimed  impulse,,  rather  than  to  know 
The  thoughts  of  warriors. 


THE  SPA.X1SII  GYPSY.  401 

DON  SILVA. 

Yet  they  are  warriors  too — 

Your  animals.     Your  judgment  limps,  Sephardo: 
Death  is  the  king  of  this  world;  'tis  his  park 
Where  he  breeds  life  to  feed  him.     Cries  of  pain 
Are  music  for  his  banquet;  and  the  masque — 
The  last  grand  masque  for  his  diversion,  is 
The  Holy  Inquisition. 

SEPHAEDO. 

Ay,  anon 

I  may  chime  in  with  you.     But  not  the  less 
My  judgment  has  firm  feet.     Though  death  were  king, 
And  cruelty  his  right-hand  minister, 
Pity  insurgent  in  some  human  breasts 
Makes  spiritual  empire,  reigns  supreme 
As  persecuted  faith  in  faithful  hearts. 
Your  small  physician,  weighing  ninety  pounds, 
A  petty  morsel  for  a  healthy  shark, 
Will  worship  mercy  throned  within  his  soul 
Though  all  the  luminous  angels  of  the  stars 
Burst  into  cruel  chorus  on  his  ear, 
Singing,  "We  know  no  mercy."     He  would  cry, 
"  I  know  it "  still,  and  soothe  the  frightened  bird 
And  feed  the  child  a-hungered,  walk  abreast 
Of  persecuted  men,  and  keep  most  hate 
For  rational  torturers.     There  I  stand  firm. 
But  you  are  bitter,  and  my  speech  rolls  on 
Out  of  your  note. 

DON  SILVA. 

No,  no,  I  follow  yon. 
I  too  have  that  within  which  I  will  worship 

In  spite  of .     Yes,  Sephardo,  I  am  bitter. 

I  need  your  counsel,  foresight,  all  your  aid. 
Lay  these  small  guests  to  bed,  then  we  will  talk. 

SEPHARDO. 

See,  they  are  sleeping  now.     The  boy  has  made 
My  leg  his  pillow.     For  my  brother  sage, 
He'll  never  heed  us;  he  knit  long  ago 
A  sound  ape-system,  wherein  men  are  brutes 
26 


402  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Emitting  doubtful  noises.     Pray,  my  lord, 
Unlade  what  burdens  you:  my  ear  and  hand 
A.re  servants  of  a  heart  much  bound  to  you. 

DON  SILVA. 

Yes,  yours  is  love  that  roots  in  gifts  bestowed 
By  you  on  others,  and  will  thrive  the  more 
The  more  it  gives.     I  have  a  double  want: 
First  a  confessor — not  a  Catholic; 
A  heart  without  a  livery — naked  manhood, 

SEPHARDO. 

My  lord,  I  will  be  frank;  there's  no  such  thing 

As  naked  manhood.     If  the  stars  look  down 

On  any  mortal  of  our  shape,  whose  strength 

Is  to  judge  all  things  without  preference, 

He  is  a  monster,  not  a  faithful  man. 

While  my  heart  beats,  it  shall  wear  livery — 

My  people's  livery,  whose  yellow  badge 

Marks  them  for  Christian  scorn.     I  will  not  say 

Man  is  first  man  to  me,  then  Jew  or  Gentile: 

That  suits  the  rich  marranos;  but  to  me 

My  father  is  first  father  and  then  man. 

So  much  for  frankness'  sake.     But  let  that  pass. 

'Tis  true  at  least,  I  am  no  Catholic 

But  Salomo  Sephardo,  a  born  Jew, 

Willing  to  serve  Don  Silva. 

DON  SILVA. 

Oft  you  sing 

Another  strain,  and  melt  distinctions  down 
As  no  more  real  than  the  wall  of  dark 
Seen  by  small  fishes'  eyes,  that  pierce  a  span 
In  the  wide  ocean.     Now  you  league  yourself 
To  hem  me,  hold  me  prisoner  in  bonds 
Made,  say  you — how? — by  God  or  Demiurge, 
By  spirit  or  flesh — I  care  not !     Love  was  made 
Stronger  than  bonds,  and  where  they  press  must  break 

them. 

I  came  to  you  that  I  might  breathe  at  large, 
And  now  you  stifle  me  with  talk  of  birth, 
Of  race  and  livery.     Yet  you  knew  Fedalma. 


THE   SPANISH    <;\1»6Y.  403 

She  was. your  friend,  Sephardo.     And  you  know 
She  is  gone  from  me — know  the  hounds  are  loosed 
To  dog  me  if  I  seek  her. 

SBPHAKDO. 

Yes,  I  know. 

Forgive  me  that  I  used  untimely  speech, 
Pressing  a  bruise.     I  loved  her  well,  my  lord: 
A  woman  mixed  of  such  fine  elements 
That  were  all  virtue  and  religion  dead 
She'd  make  them  newly,  being  what  she  was. 

DON  SILVA. 

Was?  say  not  was,  Sephardo!    She  still  lives — 

Is,  and  is  mine;  and  I  will  not  renounce 

What  heaven,  nay,  what  she  gave  me.     I  will  sin, 

If  sin  I  must,  to  win  my  life  again. 

The  fault  lie  with  those  powers  who  have  embroiled 

The  world  in  hopeless  conflict,  where  all  truth 

Fights  manacled  with  falsehood,  and  all  good 

Makes  but  one  palpitating  life  with  ill. 

(DON  SILVA  pauses.     SEPHARDO  is  silent.) 

Sephardo,  speak!  am  I  not  justified? 

You  taught  my  mind  to  use  the  wing  that  soars 

Above  the  petty  fences  of  the  herd: 

Now,  when  I  heed  your  doctrine,  you  are  dumb. 

SEPHAEDO. 

Patience!     Hidalgos  want  interpreters 
Of  untold  dreams  and  riddles;  they  insist 
On  dateless  horoscopes,  on  formulas 
To  raise  a  possible  spirit,  nowhere  named. 
Science  must  be  their  wishing-cap;  the  stars 
Speak  plainer  for  high  largesse.     Xo,  my  lord! 
I  cannot  counsel  you  to  unknown  deeds. 
This  much  I  can  divine:  you  wish  to  find 
Her  whom  you  love — to  make  a  secret  search. 

DON  SILVA. 

That  is  begun  already:  a  messenger 

Unknown  to  all  has  been  dispatched  this  night. 


404  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

But  forecast  must  be  used,  a  plan  devised, 
Ready  for  service  when  my  scout  returns, 
Bringing  the  invisible  thread  to  guide  my  steps 
Toward  that  lost  self  my  life  is  aching  with. 
Sephardo,  I  will  go:  and  I  must  go 
Unseen  by  all  save  you;  though,  at  our  need, 
We  may  trust  Alvar. 

SEPHARDO. 

A  grave  task,  my  lord. 
Have  you  a  shapen  purpose,  or  mere  will 
That  sees  the  end  alone  and  not  the  means? 
Resolve  will  melt  no  rocks. 

DON  SILVA. 

But  it  can  scale  them. 
This  fortress  has  two  private  issues:  one, 
Which  served  the  gypsies'  flight  to  me  is  closed; 
Our  bands  must  watch  the  outlet,  now  betrayed 
To  cunning  enemies.     Eemains  one  other, 
Known  to  no  man  save  me;  a  secret  left 
As  heirloom  in  our  house;  a  secret  safe 
Even  from  him — From  Father  Isidor. 
'Tis  he  who  forces  me  to  use  it — he; 
All's  virtue  that  cheats  bloodhounds.    Hear,  Sephardo. 
Given,  my  scout  returns,  and  brings  me  news 
I  can  straight  act  on,  I  shall  want  your  aid. 
The  issue  lies  below  this  tower,  your  fastness, 
Where,  by  my  charter,  you  rule  absolute. 
I  shall  feign  illness;  you  with  mystic  air 
Must  speak  of  treatment  asking  vigilance 
(Nay  I  am  ill — my  life  has  half  ebbed  out). 
1  shall  be  whimsical,  devolve  command 
On  Don  Diego,  speak  of  poisoning, 
Insist  on  being  lodged  within  this  tower, 
And  rid  myself  of  tendance  save  from  you 
And  perhaps  from  Alvar.     So  I  shall  escape 
Unseen  by  spies,  shall  win  the  days  I  need 
To  ransom  her  and  have  her  safe  enshrined. 
No  matter,  were  my  flight  disclosed  at  last; 
I  shall  come  back  as  from  a  duel  fought 
Which  no  man  can  undo.     Now  you  know  all. 
Say,  can  I  count  on  you? 


THE   SI'AMMl    GYPSY.  405 

SEPHARDO. 

For  faithfulness 

In  aught  that  I  may  promise,  yes,  my  lord. 
But — for  a  pledge  of  faithfulness — this  warning. 
I  will  betray  naught  for  your  personal  harm; 
I  love  you.     But  note  this — I  am  a  Jew; 
And  while  the  Christian  persecutes  my  race, 
I'll  turn  at  need  even  the  Christian's  trust 
Into  a  weapon  and  a  shield  for  Jews. 
Shall  Cruelty  crowned — wielding  the  savage  force 
Of  multitudes,  and  calling  savageness  God 
Who  gives  it  victory — upbraid  deceit 
And  ask  for  faithfulness?    I  love  you  well. 
You  are  my  friend.     But  yet  you  are  a  Christian, 
Whose  birth  has  bound  you  to  the  Catholic  kings. 
There  may  come  moments  when  to  share  my  joy 
Would  make  you  traitor,  when  to  share  your  grief 
Would  make  me  other  than  a  Jew 

DON  SILVA. 

What  need 

To  urge  that  now,  Sephardo?    I  am  one 
Of  many  Spanish  nobles  who  detest 
The  roaring  bigotry  of  the  herd,  would  fain 
Dash  from  the  lips  of  king  and  queen  the  cup 
Filled  with  besotting  venom,  half  infused 
By  avarice  and  half  by  priests.     And  now — 
Now  when  the  cruelty  you  flout  me  with 
Pierces  me  too  in  the  apple  of  my  eye, 
Now  when  my  kinship  scorches  me  like  hate 
Flashed  from  a  mother's  eye,  you  choose  this  time 
To  talk  of  birth  as  of  inherited  rage 
Deep-down,  volcanic,  fatal,  bursting  forth 
From  under  hard -taught  reason?    Wondrous  friend! 
My  uncle  Lmlor's  echo,  mocking  me, 
From  the  opposing  quarter  of  the  heavens, 
With  iteration  of  the  thing  I  know, 
That  I'm  a  Christian  knight  and  Spanish  duke! 
The  consequence?    Why,  that  I  know.     It  lies 
In  my  own  hands  and  not  on  raven  tongues. 
The  knight  and  noble  shall  not  wear  the  chain 
Of  false-linked  thoughts  in  brains  of  other  men. 
What  question  was  there  'twixt  us  two,  of  aught 
That  makes  division?     When  I  come  to  you 
I  come  for  other  doctrine  than  the  Prior  s. 


4:00          THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

SEPHARDO. 

My  lord,  you  are  overwrought  by  pain.     My  words, 

That  carried  innocent  meaning,  do  but  float 

Like  little  emptied  cups  upon  the  flood 

Your  mind  brings  with  it.     I  but  answered  you 

With  regular  proviso,  such  as  stands 

In  testaments  and  charters,  to  forefend 

A  possible  case  which  none  deem  likelihood; 

Just  turned  my  sleeve,  and  pointed  to  the  brand 

Of  brotherhood  that  limits  every  pledge. 

Superfluous  nicety — the  student's  trick, 

Who  will  not  drink  until  he  can  define 

What  water  is  and  is  not.     But  enough. 

My  will  to  serve  you  now  knows  no  division 

Save  the  alternate  beat  of  love  and  fear. 

There's  danger  in  this  quest — name,  honor,  life — 

My  lord,  the  stake  is  great,  and  are  you  sure 

DON  SILVA. 

No,  I  am  sure  of  naught  but  this,  Sephardo, 
That  I  will  go.     Prudence  is  but  conceit 
Hoodwinked  by  ignorance.     There's  naught  exists 
That  is  not  dangerous  and  holds  not  death 
For  souls  or  bodies.     Prudence  turns  its  helm 
To  flee  the  storm  and  lands  'mid  pestilence. 
Wisdom  would  end  by  throwing  dice  with  folly 
But  for  dire  passion  which  alone  makes  choice. 
And  I  have  chosen  as  the  lion  robbed 
Chooses  to  turn  upon  the  ravisher. 
If  love  were  slack,  the  Prior's  imperious  will 
Would  move  it  to  outmatch  him.     But,  Sephardo, 
Were  all  else  mute,  all  passive  as  sea-calms, 
My  soul  is  one  great  hunger — I  must  see  her. 
Now  you  are  smiling.     Oh,  you  merciful  men 
Pick  up  coarse  griefs  and  fling  them  in  the  face 
Of  us  whom  life  with  long  descent  has  trained 
To  subtler  pains,  mocking  your  ready  balms. 
You  smile  at  my  soul's  hunger. 

SEPHARDO. 

Science  smiles 

And  sways  our  lips  in  spite  of  us,  my  lord, 
When  thought  weds  fact — when  maiden  prophecy 
Wfttting,  believing,  sees  the  bridal  torch. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  4UV 

I  use  not  vulgar  measures  for  your  grief, 
My  pity  keeps  no  cruel  feasts;  but  thought 
Ihis  joys  apart,  even  in  blackest  woe, 
And  seizing  some  fine  thread  of  verity 
Knows  momentary  godhead. 

DON  SILVA. 

And  your  thought? 

SEPHARDO. 

Seized  on  the  close  agreement  of  your  words 
With  what  is  written  in  your  horoscope. 

DON  SILVA. 
Beach  it  me  now.' 

SEPHARDO. 
By  your  leave,  Annibal. 

(He  places  ANNIBAL  on  PABLO'S  lap  and  rises.  The  boy 
moves  without  waking,  and  his  head  falls  on  the  opposite 
side.  SEPHARDO  fetches  a  cushion  and  lays  PABLO'S 
head  gently  down  upon  it,  then  goes  to  reach  the  parch- 
ment from  a  cabinet.  ANNIBAL,  having  waked  up  in 
alarm,  shuts  his  eyes  quickly  again  and  pretends  to 
sleep.) 

DON  SILVA. 

I  wish,  by  new  appliance  of  your  skill, 
Reading  afresh  the  records  of  the  sky, 
You  could  detect  more  special  augury. 
Such  chance  oft  happens,  for  all  characters 
Must  shrink  or  widen,  us  our  wine-skins  do, 
For  more  or  less  that  we  can  pour  in  them; 
And  added  years  give  ever  a  new  key 
To  fixed  prediction. 

(returning  with  the  parchment  and  reseating 
himself). 

True;  our  growing  thought 
Makes  growing  revelation.     But  demand  not 


408  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Specific  augury,  as  of  sure  success 

In  meditated  projects,  or  of  ends 

To  be  foreknown  by  peeping  in  God's  scroll. 

I  say — nay,  Ptolemy  said  it,  but  wise  books 

For  half  the  truths  they  hold  are  honored  tombs — 

Prediction  is  contingent,  of  effects 

Where  causes  and  concomitants  are  mixed 

To  seeming  wealth  of  possibilities 

Beyond  our  reckoning.     Who  will  pretend 

To  tell  the  adventures  of  each  single  fish 

Within  the  Syrian  Sea?     Show  me  a  fish, 

Fll  weigh  him,  tell  his  kind,  what  he  devoured, 

What  would  have  devoured  Mm — but  for  one  Bias 

Who  netted  him  instead;  nay,  could  I  tell 

That  had  Bias  missed  him,  he  would  not  have  died 

Of  poisonous  mud,  and  so  made  carrion, 

Swept  off  at  last  by  some  sea-scavenger? 

DON  SlLVA. 

Ay,  now  you  talk  of  fishes,  you  get  hard. 
I  note  you  merciful  men:  you  can  endure 
Torture  of  fishes  and  hidalgos.     Follows? 

SEPHARDO. 

By  how  much,  then,  the  fortunes  of  a  man 

Are  made  of  elements  refined  and  mixed 

Beyond  a  tunny's,  what  our  science  tells 

Of  the  star's  influence  hath  contingency 

In  special  issues.     Thus,  the  loadstone  draws, 

Acts  like  a  will  to  make  the  iron  submiss; 

But  garlick  rubbing  it,  that  chief  effect 

Lies  in  suspense;  the  iron  keeps  at  large, 

And  garlick  is  controller  of  the  stone. 

And  so,  my  lord,  your  horoscope  declares 

Not  absolutely  of  your  sequent  lot, 

But,  by  our  lore's  authentic  rules,  sets  forth 

What  gifts,  what  dispositions,  likelihoods 

The  aspect  of  the  heavens  conspired  to  fuse 

With  your  incorporate  soul.     Aught  more  than  this 

Is  vulgar  doctrine.     For  the  ambient, 

Though  a  cause  regnant,  is  not  absolute, 

But  suffers  a  determining  restraint 

From  action  of  the  subject  qualities 

In  proximate  motion. 


THE    H'AXI-A    (rYPSY.  4<>9 

DON  SILVA. 

Yet  you  smiled  just  now 
At  some  close  fitting  of  my  horoscope 
"With  present  fact — with  this  resolve  of  mine 
To  quit  the  fortress? 

SEPHARDO. 

Nay,  not  so;  I  smiled, 
Observing  how  the  temper  of  your  soul 
Sealed  long  tradition  of  the  influence  shed 
By  the  heavenly  spheres.     Here  is  your  horoscope: 
The  aspects  of  the  Moon  with  Mars  conjunct, 
Of  Venus  and  the  Sun  with  Saturn,  lord 
Of  the  ascendant  make  symbolic  speech 
Whereto  your  words  gave  running  paraphrase. 

DON  SILVA  (impatiently). 
What  did  I  say? 

SEPHARDO. 

You  spoke  as  oft  you  did 
When  I  was  schooling  you  at  Cordova, 
And  lessons  on  the  noun  and  verb  were  drowned 
With  sudden  stream  of  general  debate 
On  tilings  and  actions.     Always  in  that  stream 
I  sa\v  the  play  of  babbling  currents,  saw 
A  nature  o'er-endowed  with  opposites 
Making  a  self  alternate,  where  each  hour 
Was  critic  of  the  last,  each  mood  too  strong 
For  tolerance  of  its  fellow  in  close  yoke. 
The  ardent  planets  stationed  as  supreme, 
Potent  in  action,  suffer  light  malign 
From  luminaries  large  and  coldly  bright 
Inspiring  meditative  doubt,  which  straight 
Doubts  of  itself,  by  interposing  act 
Of  Jupiter  in  the  fourth  nouse  fortified 
With  power  ancestral.     So,  my  lord,  I  read 
The  changeless  in  the  changing;  so  I  read 
The  constant  action  of  celestial  powers 
Mixed  into  waywardness  of  mortal  men, 
Whereof  no  sage's  eye  can  trace  the  course 
And  see  the  close. 


4:10  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

DON   SlLVA. 

Fruitful  result,  0  sage! 
Certain  uncertainty. 

SEPHAEDO. 

Yea,  a  result 

Fruitful  as  seeded  earth,  where  certainty 
Would  be  as  barren  as  a  globe  of  gold. 
I  love  you,  and  would  serve  you  well,  my  lord. 
Your  rashness  vindicates  itself  too  much, 
Puts  harness  on  of  cobweb  theory 
While  rushing  like  a  cataract.     Be  warned. 
Resolve  with  you  is  a  fire-breathing  steed, 
But  it  sees  visions,  and  may  feel  the  air 
Impassable  with  thoughts  that  come  too  late, 
Rising  from  out  the  grave  of  murdered  honor. 
Look  at  your  image  in  your  horoscope: 

(Laying  the  horoscope  before  DON  SILVA.) 

You  are  so  mixed,  my  lord,  that  each  to-day 
May  seem  a  maniac  to  its  morrow. 

DON  SILVA  (pushing  away  the  horoscope,  rising  and  turn- 
ing to  look  out  at  the  open  window}. 

No! 

No  morrow  e'er  will  say  that  I  am  mad 
Not  to  renounce  her.     Risks!  I  know  them  all. 
Fve  dogged  each  lurking,  ambushed  consequence. 
I've  handled  every  chance  to  know  its  shape 
As  blind  men  handle  bolts.     Oh,  Fm  too  sane! 
I  see  the  Prior's  nets.     He  does  my  deed ; 
For  he  has  narrowed  all  my  life  to  this — 
That  I  must  find  her  by  some  hidden  means. 

(He  turns  and  stands  close  in  front  of  SEPHARDO.) 

One  word,  Sephardo — leave  that  horoscope, 
Which  is  but  iteration  of  myself, 
And  give  me  promise.     Shall  I  count  on  you 
To  act  upon  my  signal?     Kings  of  Spain 
Like  me  have  found  their  refuge  in  a  Jew, 
And  trusted  in  his  counsel.     You  will  help  meP 

SEPHARDO. 
Yes,  my  Jord,  J  wjll  help  you, 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  411 

Is  to  the  nations  as  the  body's  heart: 
Thus  writes  our  poet  Jehuda.     I  will  act 
So  that  no  man  may  ever  say  through  me 
"  Your  Israel  is  naught,"  and  make  my  deeds 
The  mud  they  fling  upon  my  brethren. 
I  will  not  fail  you,  save — you  know  the  terms: 
I  am  a  Jew,  and  not  that  infamous  life 
That  takes  on  bastardy,  will  know  no  father, 
So  shrouds  itself  in  the  pale  abstract,  Man. 
You  should  be  sacrificed  to  Israel 
If  Israel  needed  it. 

DON  SILVA. 

I  fear  not  that. 

I  am  no  friend  of  fines  and  banishment, 
Or  flames  that,  fed  on  heretics,  still  gape, 
And  must  have  heretics  made  to  feed  them  still. 
I  take  your  terms,  and  for  the  rest,  your  love 
Will  not  forsake  me. 

SEPHARDO. 

'Tis  hard  Eoman  love, 

That  looks  away  and  stretches  forth  the  sword 
Bared  for  its  master's  breast  to  run  upon. 
But  you  will  have  it  so.     Love  shall  obey. 

ON  SILVA  turns  to  the  window  again,  and  is  silent  for  a 
few  moments,  looking  at  the  sky. ) 

DON  SILVA. 

See  now,  Sephardo,  you  would  keep  no  faith 
To  smooth  the  path  of  cruelty.     Confess, 
The  deed  I  would  not  do,  save  for  the  strait 
Another  brings  me  to  (quit  my  command, 
Resign  it  for  brief  space,  I  mean  no  more) — 
Were  that  deed  branded,  then  the  brand  should  fix 
On  him  who  urged  me. 

SEPHARDO. 

Will  it,  though,  my  lord? 

DON  SILVA. 
I  speak  not  of  the  fnet  but  of  the  riht, 


412  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 


My  lord,  you  said  but  now  you  were  resolved. 
Question  not  if  the  world  will  be  unjust 
Branding  your  deed.     If  conscience  has  two  courts 
With  differing  verdicts,  where  shall  lie  the  appeal? 
Our  law  must  be  without  us  or  within. 
The  Highest  speaks  through  all  our  people's  voice, 
Custom,  tradition,  and  old  sanctities; 
Or  he  reveals  himself  by  new  decrees 
Of  inward  certitude. 

DON  SILVA. 

My  love  for  her 
Makes  highest  law,  must  be  the  voice  of  God. 

SEPHARDO. 

I  thought,  but  now,  you  seemed  to  make  excuse, 
And  plead  as  in  some  court  where  Spanish  knights 
Are  tried  by  other  laws  than  those  of  love. 

DON  SILVA. 

'Twas  momentary.     I  shall  dare  it  all. 
How  the  great  planet  glows,  and  looks  at  me, 
And  seems  to  pierce  me  with  his  effluence! 
Were  he  a  living  God,  these  rays  that  stir 
In  me  the  pulse  of  wonder  were  in  him 
Fullness  of  knowledge.     Are  you  certified, 
Sephardo,  that  the  astral  science  shrinks 
To  such  pale  ashes,  dead  symbolic  forms 
For  that  congenital  mixture  of  effects 
Which  life  declares  without  the  aid  of  lore? 
If  there  are  times  propitious  or  malign 
To  our  first  framing,  then  must  all  events 
Have  favoring  periods:  you  cull  your  plants 
By  signal  of  the  heavens,  then  why  not  trace 
As  others  would  by  astrologic  rule 
Times  of  good  augury  for  momentous  acts, — 
As  secret  journeys? 

SEPHARDO. 

Oh,  my  lord,  the  stars 
Act  not  as  witchcraft  or  as  muttered  spells. 
I  said  before  they  are  not  absolute, 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  413 

And  tell  no  fortunes.     I  adhere  alone 
To  such  tradition  of  their  agencies 
As  reason  fortifies. 

DON  SlLVA. 

A  barren  science! 

Some  argue  now  'tis  folly.     'Twere  as  well 
Be  of  their  mind.     If  those  bright  stars  had  will — 
But  they  are  fatal  tires,  and  know  no  love. 
Of  old,  I  think,  the  world  was  happier 
With  many  gods,  who  held  a  struggling  life 
As  mortals  do,  and  helped  men  in  the  straits 
Of  forced  misdoing.     I  doubt  that  horoscope. 

(DON  SILVA  turns  from  the  window  and  reseats  himself 
opposite  SEPHARDO.) 

I  am  most  self-contained,  and  strong  to  bear. 
No  man  save  you  has  seen  my  trembling  lip 
Utter  her  name,  since  she  was  lost  to  me. 
I'll  face  the  progeny  of  all  my  deeds. 

SEPHARDO. 

May  they  be  fair!     No  horoscope  makes  slaves. 
"Pis  but  a  mirror,  shows  one  image  forth, 
And  leaves  the  future  dark  with  endless  "ifs." 

DON  SILVA. 

I  marvel,  my  Sephardo,  you  can  pinch 

With  confident  selection  these  few  grains, 

And  call  them  verity,  from  out  the  dust 

Of  crumbling  error.     Surely  such  thought  creeps, 

With  insect  exploration  of  the  world. 

Were  I  a  Hebrew,  now,  I  would  be  bold. 

Why  should  you  fear,  not  being  Catholic? 

SEPHARDO. 

Lo!  you  yourself,  my  lord,  mix  subtleties 
With  gross  belief;  by  momentary  lapse 
Conceive,  with  all  the  vulgar,  that  we  Jews 
Must  hold  ourselves  God's  outlaws,  and  defy 
All  good  with  blasphemy,  because  we  hold 
Your  good  is  evil;  think  we  must  turn  pale 


414  THE    SPAXIbrI    GYISY. 

To  see  our  portraits  painted  in  your  hell, 
And  sin  the  more  for  knowing  we  are  lost. 

DON  SILVA. 

Head  not  my  words  with  malice.     I  but  meant, 
My  temper  hates  an  over-cautious  march. 

SEPHARDO. 

The  Unnameable  made  not  the  search  for  truth 

To  suit  hidalgos'  temper.     I  abide 

By  that  wise  spirit  of  listening  reverence 

Which  marks  the  boldest  doctors  of  our  race. 

For  Truth,  to  us,  is  like  a  living  child 

Born  of  two  parents:  if  the  parents  part 

And  will  divide  the  child,  how  shall  it  live? 

Or,  I  will  rather  say:  Two  angels  guide 

The  path  of  man,  both  aged  and  yet  young, 

As  angels  are,  ripening  through  endless  years. 

On  one  he  leans:  some  call  her  Memory, 

And  some  Tradition;  and  her  voice  is  sweet, 

With  deep  mysterious  accords:  the  other, 

Floating  above,  holds  down  a  lamp  which  streams 

A  light  divine  and  searching  on  the  earth, 

Compelling  eyes  and  footsteps.     Memory  yields, 

Yet  clings  with  loving  check,  and  shines  anew 

Reflecting  all  the  rays  of  that  bright  lamp 

Our  angel  Reason  holds.     We  had  not  walked 

But  for  Tradition;  we  walk  evermore 

To  higher  paths,  by  brightening  Reason's  lamp. 

Still  we  are  purblind,  tottering.     I  hold  less 

Than  Aben-Ezra,  of  that  aged  lore 

Brought  by  long  centuries  from  Chaldaean  plains; 

The  Jew-taught  Florentine  rejects  it  all. 

For  still  the  light  is  measured  by  the  eye, 

And  the  weak  organ  fails.     I  may  see  ill; 

But  over  all  belief  is  faithfulness, 

Which  fulfills  vision  with  obedience. 

So,  I  must  grasp  my  morsels:  truth  is  oft 

Scattered  in  fragments  round  a  stately  pile 

Built  half  of  error;  and  the  eye's  defect 

May  breed  too  much  denial.     But,  my  lord, 

I  weary  your  sick  soul.     Go  now  with  me 

Into  the"turret.     We  will  watch  the  spheres, 

And  see  the  constellations  bend  and  plunge 


THE    SPANISH    (iYPSY.  41") 

Into  a  depth  of  being  where  our  eyes 

Hold  them  no  more.     We'll  quit  ourselves  and  be 

The  red  Aldebaran  or  bright  Sinus, 

And  sail  as  in  a  solemn  voyage,  bound  . 

On  some  great  quest  we  know  not. 

DON  SILVA. 

Let  as  go. 

She  may  be  watching  too,  and  thought  of  her 
Sways  me,  as  if  she  knew,  to  every  act 
Of  pure  allegiance. 

SEPHARDO. 

That  is  love's  perfection — 
Tuning  the  soul  to  all  her  harmonies 
So  that  no  chord  can  jar.     Now  we  will  mount. 

A  large  hall  in  the  Castle,  of  Moorish  architecture.  On 
tin1  side  where  the  zvindows  are,  an  outer  gallery.  Pages 
and  other  young  gentlemen  attached  to  DON  SILVA'S 
household,  gathered  chiefly  at  one  end  of  the  hall.  Some 
are  moving  about;  others  are  lounging  on  the  carved 
benches;  others,  half  stretched  on  pieces  of  matting  and 
carpet,  are  gambling.  ARIAS,  a  stripling  of  fifteen, 
sings  by  snatches  in  a  boyish  treble,  as  he  walks  up  and 
down,  « ml  /ONAV.S-  back  the  nuts  which  another  youth  jl ings 
toward  him.  In  the  middle  DON  AMADOR,  a  gaunt, 
gray-haired  soldier,  in  a  handsome  uniform,  sits  in  a 
marble  red-cushioned  chair,  with  a  large  book  spread  out 
on  his  knees,  from  which  he  is  reading  aloud,  while  his 
voice  is  half-drowned  by  the  talk  that  is  going  on  around 
him,  first  one  voice  and  then  another  surging  above  the 
hum. 

ARIAS  (singing). 

There  was  a  holy  hermit 

Who  cou nt '-(I  nil  things  loss 
For  Christ  h  is  Master's  ylory; 

He  made  an  ivory  cross, 
And  as  he  knelt  before  it 

And  wept  Jn's  murdered  Lord, 
The  irory  turned  to  iron, 

The  r/v/6>  liirunu'  a  sword. 


416  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

JOSE  (from  the  floor). 

I  say,   twenty  cruzados!  thy  Galician  wit  can  never 
count. 

HERNANDO  (also  from  the  floor). 
And  thy  Sevillian  wit  always  counts  double. 

ARIAS  (singing). 

The  tears  that  fell  upon  it, 

They  turned  to  red,  red  rust, 
The  tears  that  fell  from  off  it 

Made  writing  in  the  dust. 
The  holy  hermit,  gazing, 

Saw  words  upon  the  ground : 
"  The  sword  be  red  forever 

With  the  Uood  of  false  Mahound." 

DON  AMADOR  (looking  up  from  his  book,  and  raising  his 

voice). 

What,  gentlemen!    Our  Glorious  Lady  defend  us! 

ENRIQUEZ  (from  the  benches). 

Serves  the  infidels  right!  They  have  sold  Christians 
enough  to  people  half  the  towns  in  Paradise.  If  the  Queen, 
now,  had  divided  the  pretty  damsels  of  Malaga  among  the 
Castilians  who  have  been  helping  in  the  holy  war,  and  not 
sent  half  of  them  to  Naples 

ARIAS  (singing  again). 

At  the  battle  of  Clavijo 
In  the  days  of  King  Ramiro, 
Help  us,  Allah!  cried  the  Moslem, 
Cried  the  Spaniard,  Heaven's  chosen, 

God  and  Santiago! 

FABIAN. 

Oh,  the  very  tail  of  our  chance  has  vanished.  The  royal 
army  is  breaking  up — going  home  for  the  winter.  The 
Grand  Master  sticks  to  his  own  border. 

ARIAS  (singing). 
Straight  out-flushing  like  the  rainbow, 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  417 

See  him  come,  celestial  Baron, 

Mount i'<l  k  night,  with  red-crossed  banner, 

Plunging  earthward  to  the  battle, 

Glorious  Santiago  ! 

HURTADO. 

Yes,  yes,  through  the  pass  of  By-and-by,  you  go  to  the 
valley  of  Never.  We  might  have  done  a  great  feat,  if  the 
Marquis  of  Cadiz 

ARIAS  (sings). 

As  the  flame  before  the  swift  wind, 
See,  he  fires  us,  we  burn  with  him! 
Flash  our  swords,  dash  Pagans  backward — 
Victory  he!  pale  fear  is  Allah! 

God  with  Santiago  ! 

DON  AMADOR  (raising  his  voice  to  a  cry). 
Sangre  de  Dios,  gentlemen! 

(He  shuts  the  book,  and  lets  it  fall  with  a  bang  on  the 
floor.     There  is  instant  silence.) 

To  what  good  end  is  it  that  I,  who  studied  at  Salamanca, 
and  can  write  verses  agreeable  to  the  Glorious  lady,  with 
the  point  of  a  sword  which  hath  done  harder  service,  am 
reading  aloud  in  a  clerkly  manner  from  a  book  which  hath 
been  culled  from  the  flowers  of  all  books,  to  instruct  you 
in  the  knowledge  befitting  those  who  would  be  knights  and 
worthy  hidalgos?  I  had  as  lief  be  reading  in  a  belfry. 
And  gambling  too!  As  if  it  were  a  time  when  we  needed 
not  the  help  of  God  and  the  saints!  Surely  for  the  space 
of  one  hour  ye  might  subdue  your  tongues  to  your  ears, 
that  so  your  tongues  might  learn  somewhat  of  civility  and 
modesty.  Wherefore  am  I  master  of  the  Duke's  retinue, 
if  my  voice  is  to  run  along  like  a  gutter  in  a  storm? 

HURTADO  (lifting  up  the  book,  and  respectfully  presenting 
it  to  DON  AMADOR). 

Pardon,  Don  Amador!  The  air  is  so  commoved  by  your 
voice,  that  it  stirs  our  tongues  in  spite  of  us. 

DON  AMADOR  (reopening  the  book). 

Confess,  now:  it  is  a  goose-headed   trick,    that  when 
27 


418  THE  SPANISH   GYPSY. 

rational  sounds  are  made  for  your  edification,  you  find 
naught  in  it  but  an  occasion  for  purposeless  gabble.  I 
will  report  it  to  the  Duke,  and  the  reading-time  shall  be 
doubled,  and  my  office  of  reader  shall  be  handed  over  to 
Fray  Domingo. 

( While  DON  AM  A  DOE  has  been  speaking,  DON  SILVA,  with 
DON  ALTAR,  has  appeared  walking  in  the  outer  gallery 
on  which  the  windows  are  opened. ) 

ALL  (in  concert). 
No,  no,  no. 

DON  AMADOE. 

Are  ye  ready,  then,  to  listen,  if  I  finish  the  wholesome 
extract  from  the  Seven  Parts,  wherein  the  wise  King 
Alfonso  hath  set  down  the  reason  why  knights  should  be 
of  gentle  birth?  Will  ye  now  be  silent? 

ALL. 
Yes,  silent. 

DON  AMADOB. 

But  when  I  pause,  and  look  up,  I  give  any  leave  to 
speak,  if  he  hath  aught  pertinent  to  say. 

(Reads.) 

"And  this  nobility  cometh  in  three  ways;  first,  by 
lineage,  secondly,  by  science,  and  thirdly,  by  valor  and 
worthy  behavior.  Now,  although  they  who  gain  nobility 
through  science  or  good  deeds  are  rightfully  called  noble 
and  gentle;  nevertheless,  they  are  with  the  highest  fitness 
so  called  who  are  noble  by  ancient  lineage,  and  lead  a 
worthy  life  as  by  inheritance  from  afar;  and  hence  are 
more  bound  and  constrained  to  act  well,  and  guard  them- 
selves from  error  and  wrong-doing;  for  in  their  case  it  is 
more  true  that  by  evil-doing  they  bring  injury  and  shame 
not  only  on  themselves,  but  also  on  those  from  whom  they 
are  derived." 

DON  AMADOE  (placing  his  forefinger  for  a  mark  on  the 
page,  and  looking  up,  while  he  keeps  his  voice  raised,  as 
wishing  DON  SILVA  to  overhear  him  in  the  judicious 

of  his  function). 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  419 

Hear  ye  that,  young  gentlemen?  See  ye  not  that  if  ye 
have  but  bad  manners  even,  they  disgrace  you  more  than 
gross  misdoings  disgrace  the  low-born?  Think  you,  Arias, 
it  becomes  the  son  of  your  house  irreverently  to  sing  and 
fling  nuts,  to  the  interruption  of  your  elders? 

ARIAS  (sitting  on  the  floor,  and  leaning  backward  on  his 

elbows. ) 

Nay,  Don  Amador;  King  Alfonso,  they  say,  was  a 
heretic,  and  I  think  that  is  not  true  writing.  For  noble 
birth  gives  us  more  leave  to  do  ill  if  we  like. 

DON  AMADOR  (lifting  his  brows). 
What  bold  and  blasphemous  talk  is  this? 

ARIAS. 

Why,  nobles  are  only  punished  now  and  then,  in  a  grand 
way,  and  have  their  heads  cut  off,  like  the  Grand  Con- 
stable. I  shouldn't  mind  that. 

JOSE. 

Nonsense,  Arias!  nobles  have  their  heads  cut  off  because 
their  crimes  are  noble.  If  they  did  what  was  unknightly, 
they  would  come  to  shame.  Is  not  that  true,  Don 
Amador? 

DON  AMADOR. 

Arias  is  a  contumacious  puppy,  who  will  bring  dishonor 
on  his  parentage.  Pray,  sirrah,  whom  did  you  ever  hear 
speak  as  you  have  spoken? 

ARIAS. 

Nay,  I  speak  out  of  my  own  head.  I  shall  go  and  ask 
the  Duke. 

HURTADO. 

Now,  now!  you  are  too  bold,  Arias. 


Oh,  he  is  never  angry  with  me, — (Dropping  his  voice) 
scause  the    Lady  Fed  alma  liked  me.     Sne  said   I  was  a 


420  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

good   boy,  and  pretty,  and  that  is  what  you  are  not, 
Hurtado. 

HURTADO. 
Girl-face!    See,  now,  if  you  dare  ask  the  Duke. 

(DON  SILVA  is  just  entering  the  hall  from  the  gallery,  with 
DON  ALVAE  behind  him,  intending  to  pass  out  at  the 
other  end.  All  rise  with  homage.  DON  SILVA  loivs 
coldly  and  abstractedly.  ARIAS  advances  from  the  group, 
and  goes  up  to  DON  SILVA.) 

ARIAS. 

My  lord,  is  it  true  that  a  noble  is  more  dishonored  than 
other  men  if  he  does  aught  dishonorable? 

DON  SILVA  (first  blushing  deeply,  and  grasping  his  sword, 
then  raising  his  hand  and  giving  ARIAS  a  blow  on  the 
ear). 

Varlet! 

ARIAS. 

My  lord,  I  am  a  gentleman. 
(DON  SILVA  pushes  him  away,  and  passes  on  hurriedly.) 

DON  ALVAR  (following  and  turning  to  speak). 

Go,  go!  you  should  not  speak  to  the  Duke  when  you  are 
not  called  upon.     He  is  ill  and  much  distempered. 

(ARIAS  retires,  flushed,  with  tears  in  his  eyes.  His  com- 
panions look  too  much  surprised  to  triumph.  DON 
AM  ADO  R  remains  silent  and  confused.) 

The  Placa  Santiago  during  busy  market-time.  Mules  and 
asses  laden  with  fruits  and  vegetables.  Stalls  and  booths 
filled  with  wares  of  all  sorts.  A  crowd  of  buyers  and 
sellers.  A  stalwart  woman,  with  keen  eyes,  leaning  over 
the  panniers  of  a  mule  laden  with  apples,  watches 
LORENZO,  who  is  lounginy  through  the  market.  As  he 
approaches  her,  he  is  met  by  BLASCO. 

LORENZO. 
Well  met,  friend. 


THE    SPANISH    GVl'SV. 


BLASCO. 

Ay,  for  we  are  soon  to  part, 
And  I  would  see  you  at  the  hostelry, 
To  take  my  reckoning.     I  go  forth  to-day. 

LORENZO. 

'Tis  grievous  parting  with  good  company. 
I  would  I  had  the  gold  to  pay  such  guests 
For  all  my  pleasure  in  their  talk. 

BLASCO. 

Why,  yes; 

A  solid-headed  man  of  Aragon 
Has  matter  in  him  that  you  Southerners  lack. 
You  like  my  company — 'tis  natural. 
But,  look  you,  I  have  done  my  business  well, 
Have  sold  and  ta'en  commissions.     I  come  straight 
From — you  know  who — I  like  not  naming  him. 
I'm  a  thick  man;  you  reach  not  my  backbone 
With  any  tooth-pick;  but  I  tell  you  this: 
He  reached  it  with  his  eye,  right  to  the  marrow. 
It  gave  me  heart  that  I  had  plate  to  sell, 
For,  saint  or  no  saint,  a  good  silversmith 
Is  wanted  for  God's  service;  and  my  plate — 
He  judged  it  well — bought  nobly. 

LORENZO. 

A  great  man, 
And  holy! 

BLASCO. 

Yes,  I'm  glad  I  leave  to-day. 
For  there  are  stories  give  a  sort  of  smell — 
One's  nose  has  fancies.     A  good  trader,  sir, 
Likes  not  this  plague  of  lapsing  in  the  air, 
Most  caught  by  men  with  funds.     And  they  do  say 
There's  a  great  terror  here  in  Moors  and  Jews, 
I  would  say,  Christians  of  unhappy  blood. 
'Tis  monstrous,  sure,  that  men  of  substance  lapse, 
And  risk  their  property.     I  know  I'm  sound. 
No  heresy  was  ever  bait  to  me.     Whate'er 
Is  the  right  faith,  that  I  believe — naught  else. 


•xM  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

LORENZO. 

Ay,  truly,  for  the  flavor  of  true  faith 

Once  known  must  sure  be  sweetest  to  the  taste. 

But  an  uneasy  mood  is  now  abroad 

Within  the  town;  partly,  for  that  the  Duke 

Being  sorely  sick,  has  yielded  the  command 

"To  Don  Diego,  a  most  valiant  man, 

More  Catholic  than  the  Holy  Father's  self, 

Half  chiding  God  that  He  will  tolerate 

A  Jew  or  Arab;  though,  'tis  plain  they're  made 

For  profit  of  good  Christians.     And  weak  heads — 

Panic  will  knit  all  disconnected  facts — 

Draw  hence  belief  in  evil  auguries, 

Rumors  of  accusation  and  arrest. 

All  air-begotten.     Sir,  you  need  not  go. 

But  if  it  must  be  so,  I'll  follow  you 

In  fifteen  minutes — finish  marketing, 

Then  be  at  home  to  speed  you  on  your  way. 

BLASCO. 

Do  so.     1*11  back  to  Saragossa  straight. 

The  court  and  nobles  are  retiring  now 

And  wending  northward.     There'll  be  fresh  demand 

For  bells  and  images  against  the  Spring, 

When  doubtless  our  great  Catholic  sovereigns 

Will  move  to  conquest  of  these  eastern  parts, 

And  cleanse  Granada  from  the  infidel. 

Stay,  sir,  with  God,  until  we  meet  again! 

LORENZO. 
Go,  sir,  with  God,  until  I  follow  you. 

(Exit  BLASCO.  LORENZO  passes  on  toward  the  market- 
woman,  who,  as  he  approaches,  raises  herself  from  her 
leaning  attitude.) 

LORENZO. 

Good -day,  my  mistress.     How's  your  merchandise? 

Fit  for  a  host  to  buy?    Your  apples  now, 

They  have  fair  cheeks;  how  are  they  at  the  core? 

MARKET-WOMAN. 

Good,  good,  sir!    Taste  and  try.     See,  here  is  one 
Weighs  a  man's  head.     The  best  are  bound  with  tow: 
They're  worth  the  pains,  to  keep  the  peel  from  splits. 


i  ii  i.  ,-i'AMbH   <,i  r,M  . 


(»s'//r  laki's  (nil  mi  ttj>j>le  bound  with  tow,  and,  as  she  puts 
if  into  LOKKXZO'S  hand,  speaks  in  a  lower  tone.} 

'Tis  called  the  Miracle.     You  open  it, 
And  find  it  full  of  speech. 

LORENZO. 

Ay,  give  it  me, 

I'll  take  it  to  the  Doctor  in  the  tower. 
He  feeds  on  fruit,  and  if  he  likes  the  sort 
I'll  buy  them  for  him.     Meanwhile,  drive  your  ass 
Round  to  my  hostelry.     I'll  straight  be  there. 
You'll  not  refuse  some  barter? 

MAEKET-  WOMAN. 

No,  not  I. 

Feathers  and  skins. 

LORENZO. 
Good,  till  we  meet  again. 

(LORENZO,  after  smelling  at  the  apple,  puts  it  into  a  pouch- 
like  basket  which  hangs  before  him,  and  walks  away. 
The  woman  drives  off  the  mule.) 

A  LETTER. 

"Zarca,  the  chieftain  of  the  Gypsies,  greets 
'  The  King  El  Zagal.     Let  the  force  be  sent 
'With  utmost  SAviftness  to  the  Puss  of  Luz. 
'  A  good  five  hundred  added  to  my  bands 
'Will  master  all  the  garrison:  the  town 
'Is  half  with  us,  and  will  not  lift  an  arm 
'Save  on  our  side.     My  scouts  have  found  a  way 
'  Win-re  once  we  thought  the  fortress  most  secure: 
'Spying  a  man  upon  the  height,  they  traced, 
'  By  keen  conjecture  piecing  broken  sight, 
'His  downward  path,  and  found  its  issue.     There 
'  A  file  of  us  can  mount,  surprise  the  fort 
'And  give  the  signal  to  our  friends  within 
'To  ope  the  gates  for  our  confederate  bands, 
'  Who  will  lie  eastward  ambushed  by  the  rocks, 
'  Waiting  the  night.     Enough:  give  me  command, 
'Bedmar  is  yours.     Chief  Zarca  will  redeem 
'His  pledge  of  highest  service  to  the  Moor: 


424  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

"  Let  the  Moor  too  be  faithful  and  repay 
"  The  Gypsy  with  the  furtherance  he  needs 
"To  lead  his  people  over  Bahr  el  Scham 
"  And  plant  them  on  the  shore  of  Africa. 
"  So  may  the  King  El  Zagal  live  as  one 
"  Who,  trusting  Allah  will  be  true  to  him, 
"Maketh  himself  as  Allah  true  to  friends/' 


BOOK  III. 

QUIT  now  the  town,  and  with  a  journeying  dream 

Swift  as  the  wings  of  sound  yet  seeming  slow 

Through  multitudinous  pulsing  of  stored  sense 

And  spiritual  space,  see  walls  and  towers 

Lie  in  the  silent  whiteness  of  a  trance, 

Giving  no  sign  of  that  warm  life  within 

That  moves  and  murmurs  through  their  hidden  heart. 

Pass  o'er  the  mountain,  wind  in  sombre  shade, 

Then  wind  into  the  light  and  see  the  town 

Shrunk  to  white  crust  upon  the  darker  rock. 

Turn  east  and  south,  descend,  then  rise  anew 

'Mid  smaller  mountains  ebbing  toward  the  plain: 

Scent  the  fresh  breath  of  the  height-loving  herbs 

That,  trodden  by  the  pretty  parted  hoofs 

Of  nimble  goats,  sigh  at  the  innocent  bruise, 

And  with  a  mingled  difference  exquisite 

Pour  a  sweet  burden  on  the  buoyant  air. 

Pause  now  and  be  all  ear.     Far  from  the  south, 

Seeking  the  listening  silence  of  the  heights, 

Comes  a  slow-dying  sound — the  Moslems'  call 

To  prayer  in  afternoon.     Bright  in  the  sun 

Like  tall  white  sails  on  a  green  shadowy  sea 

Stand  Moorish  watch-towers:  'neath  that  eastern  sky 

Couches  unseen  the  strength  of  Moorish  Baza; 

Where  the  meridian  bends  lies  Guadix,  hold 

Of  brave  El  Zagal.     This  is  Moorish  land, 

Where  Allah  lives  unconquered  in  dark  breasts 

And  blesses  still  the  many-nourishing  earth 

With  dark-armed  industry.     See  from  the  steep 

The  scattered  olives  hurry  in  gray  throngs 

Down  toward  the  valley,  where  the  little  stream 

Parts  a  green  hollow  'twixt  the  gentler  slopes; 


THK    SPANISH    QTF81  .  425 

And  in  that  hollow,  dwellings:  not  white  homes 

Of  building  Moors,  but  little  swarthy  tents 

Such  as  of  old  perhaps  on  Asian  plains, 

Or  wending  westward  past  the  Caucasus, 

Our  fathers  raised  to  rest  in.     Close  they  swarm 

About  two  taller  tents,  and  viewed  afar 

Might  seem  a  dark-robed  crowd  in  penitence 

That  silent  kneel;  but  come  now  in  their  midst 

And  watch  a  busy,  bright-eyed,  sportive  life! 

Tall  maidens  bend  to  feed  the  tethered  goat, 

The  ragged  kirtle  fringing  at  the  knee 

Above  the  living  curves,  the  shoulder's  smoothness 

Parting  the  torrent  strong  of  ebon  hair. 

Women  with  babes,  the  wild  and  neutral  glance 

Swayed  now  to  sweet  desire  of  mothers'  eyes, 

Rock  their  strong  cradling  arms  and  chant  low  strains 

Taught  by  monotonous  and  soothing  winds 

That  fall  at  night-time  on  the  dozing  ear. 

The  crones  plait  reeds,  or  shred  the  vivid  herbs 

Into  the  caldron:  tiny  urchins  crawl 

Or  sit  and  gurgle  forth  their  infant  joy. 

Lads  lying  sphynx-like  with  uplifted  breast 

Propped  on  their  elbows,  their  black  manes  tossed  back, 

Fling  up  the  coin  and  watch  its  fatal  fall, 

Dispute  and  scramble,  run  and  wrestle  fierce, 

Then  fall  to  play  and  fellowship  again; 

Or  in  a  thieving  swarm  they  run  to  plague 

The  grandsires,  who  return  with  rabbits  slung, 

And  with  the  mules  fruit-laden  from  the  fields. 

Some  striplings  choose  the  smooth  stones  from  the 

brook 

To  serve  the  slingers,  cut  the  twigs  for  snares, 
Or  trim  the  hazel-wands,  or  at  the  bark 
Of  some  exploring  dog  they  dart  away 
With  swift  precision  toward  a  moving  speck. 
These  are  the  brood  of  Zarca's  Gypsy  tribe; 
Most  like  an  earth-born  race  bred  by  the  Sun 
On  some  rich  tropic  soil,  the  father's  light 
Flashing  in  coal-black  eyes,  the  mother's  blood 
With  bounteous  elements  feeding  their  young  limbs. 
The  stalwart  men  and  youths  are  at  the  wars 
Following  their  chief,  all  save  a  trusty  band 
Who  keep  strict  watch  along  the  northern  heights. 
But  see,  upon  a  pleasant  spot  removed 
From  the  camp's  hubbub,  where  the  thicket  strong 


426  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Of  huge-eared  cactus  makes  a  bordering  curve 
And  casts  a  shadow,  lies  a  sleeping  man  . 
With  Spanish  hat  screening  his  upturned  face, 
His  doublet  loose,  his  right  arm  backward  flung, 
His  left  caressing  close  the  long-necked  lute 
That  seems  to  sleep  too,  leaning  toward  its  lord. 
He  draws  deep  breath  secure  but  not  unwatched. 
Moving  a-tiptoe,  silent  as  the  elves, 
As  mischievous,  too,  trip  three  barefooted  girls 
Not  opened  yet  to  womanhood — dark  flowers 
In  slim  long  buds:  some  paces  farther  off 
Gathers  a  little  white-teethed  shaggy  group, 
A  grinning  chorus  to  the  merry  play. 
The  tripping  girls  have  robbed  the  sleeping  man 
Of  all  his  ornaments.     Hita  is  decked 
With  an  embroidered  scarf  across  her  rags; 
Tralla,  with  thorns  for  pins,  sticks  two  rosettes 
Upon  her  threadbare  woolen;  Hinda  now, 
Prettiest  and  boldest,  tucks  her  kirtle  up 
As  wallet  for  the  stolen  buttons — then 
Bends  with  her  knife  to  cut  from  off  the  hat 
The  aigrette  and  long  feather;  deftly  cuts, 
Yet  wakes  the  sleeper,  who  with  sudden  start 
Shakes  off  the  masking  hat  and  shows  the  face 
Of  Juan:  Hinda  swift  as  thought  leaps  back, 
But  carries  off  the  spoil  triumphantly, 
And  leads  the  chorus  of  a  happy  laugh, 
Running  with  all  the  naked-footed  imps, 
Till  with  safe  survey  all  can  face  about 
And  watch  for  signs  of  stimulating  chase, 
While  Hinda  ties  long  grass  around  her  brow 
To  stick  the  feather  in  with  majesty. 
Juan  still  sits  contemplative,  with  looks 
Alternate  at  the  spoilers  and  their  work. 

JUAN. 

Ah,  you  marauding  kite — my  feather  gone! 
My  belt,  my  scarf,  my  buttons  and  rosettes! 
This  is  to  be  a  brother  of  your  tribe! 
The  fiery-blooded  children  of  the  Sun — 
So  says  chief  Zarca — children  of  the  Sun! 
Ay,  ay,  the  black  and  stinging  flies  he  breeds 
To  plague  the  decent  body  of  mankind. 
"  Orpheus,  professor  of  the  yai  saber, 


THE  si'ASitm  t;  Yi'.sY.  427 

Made  all  the  brutes  polite  by  dint  of  song." 
Pregnant  —  but  as  a  guide  in  daily  life 
Delusive.     For  if  song  and  music  cure 
The  barbarous  trick  of  thieving,  'tis  a  cure 
That  works  us  slowly  as  old  Doctor  Time 
In  curing  folly.     Why,  the  minxes  there 
Have  rhythm  in  their  toes,  and  music  rings 
As  readily  from  them  as  from  little  bells 
Swung  by  the  breeze.     Well,  I  will  try  the  physic. 

(He  touches  Ms  lute.) 

Hem!  taken  rightly,  any  single  thing, 
The  Rabbis  say,  implies  all  other  things. 
A  knotty  task,  though,  the  unraveling 
Meum  and  Tuum  from  a  saraband: 
It  needs  a  subtle  logic,  nay,  perhaps 
A  good  large  property,  to  see  the  thread. 

(He  touches  the  lute  again.) 

There's  more  of  odd  than  even  in  this  word. 

Else  pretty  sinners  would  not  be  let  off 

Sooner  than  ugly;  for  if  honeycombs 

Are  to  be  got  by  stealing,  they  should  go 

Where  life  is  bitterest  on  the  tongue.     And  yet  — 

Because  this  minx  has  pretty  ways  I  wink 

At  all  her  tricks,  though  if  a  flat-faced  lass, 

With  eyes  askew,  were  half  as  bold  as  she, 

I  should  chastise  her  with  a  hazel  switch. 

Fm  a  plucked  peacock  —  even  my  voice  and  wit 

Without  a  tail!  —  why,  any  fool  detects 

The  absence  of  your  tail,  but  twenty  fools 

May  not  detect  the  presence  of  your  wit. 

(He  touches  his  lute  again.) 

Well,  I  must  coax  my  tail  back  cunningly, 
For  to  run  after  these  brown  lizards  —  all! 
I  think  the  lizards  lift  their  ears  at  this. 


///*  luff  f//>'  lads  and  girls  gradually  ap- 
proach: lie  toucln-x  it  i/i<>  /•('  //r/.s/7//.  and  HIXDA,  advanc- 
ing, begins  to  mnci'  nnnx  and  Ay/x  icilli  an  initiatory 
t/o/iri/tf/  tiHiri'/tit  ///  ,  tiniliitij  niaj'iiuj'lii  at  Jl'  AN.  Hi'  xtta- 
dcnlij  stops,  lai/x  ilnn'ii  /n,s  Intc  and  folds  hi* 


428  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

JUAN. 
What,  you  expect  a  tune  to  dance  to,  eh? 

HINDA,  HITA,  TRALLA,  AND  THE  BEST  (clapping  their 

hands. ) 

Yes,  yes,  a  tune,  a  tune ! 

JUAN. 

But  that  is  what  you  cannot  have,  my  sweet  brothers 
and  sisters.  The  tunes  are  all  dead — dead  as  the  tunes  of 
the  lark  when  you  have  plucked  his  wings  off;  dead  as  the 
song  of  the  grasshopper  when  the  ass  has  swallowed  him. 
I  can  play  and  sing  no  more.  Hinda  has  killed  my  tunes. 

(All  cry  out  in  consternation.     HINDA  gives  a  wail  and 
tries  to  examine  the  lute.} 

JUAN  (waving  her  off). 

Understand,  Sefiora  Hinda,  that  the  tunes  are  in  me; 
they  are  not  in  the  lute  till  I  put  them  there.  And  if  you 
cross  my  humor,  I  shall  be  as  tuneless  as  a  bag  of  wool. 
If  the  tunes  are  to  be  brought  to  life  again,  I  must  have 
my  feather  back. 

(HiNDA  kisses  his  hands  and  feet  coaxingly.) 

No,  no!  not  a  note  will  come  for  coaxing.  The  feather, 
I  say,  the  feather! 

(HiNDA  sorrowfully  takes  off  the  feather,  and  gives  it  to 

JUAN.) 

Ah,  now  let  us  see.     Perhaps  a  tune  will  come. 

(He  plays  a  measure,  and  the  three  girls  begin  to  dance; 
then  he  suddenly  stops.) 

JUAN. 

No.  the  tune  will  not  come:  it  wants  the  aigrette  (point- 
ing to  it  on  Hinda' s  neck). 

(HiNDA,  with  rather  less  hesitation,  but  again  sorrowfully, 
takes  off  the  aigrette,  and  gives  it  to  him.) 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  429 

JUAN. 

Ha!  (He  plays  again,  but,  after  rather  a  longer  time, 
again  stops.)  No,  no;  'tis  the  buttons  are  wanting,  Hinda, 
the  buttons.  This  tune  feeds  chiefly  on  buttons — a  greedy 
tune.  It  wants  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six.  Good! 

(After  HINDA  has  given  up  the  buttons,  and  JUAN  has 
laid  them  down  one  by  one,  he  begins  to  play  again,  going 
on  longer  than  before,  so  that  the  dancers  become  excited 
by  the  movement.  Then  he  stops. ) 

JUAN. 

Ah,  Hita,  it  is  the  belt,  and  Tralla,  the  rosettes — both 
are  wanting.  I  see  the  tune  will  not  go  on  without  them. 

(HiTA  and  TRALLA  take  off  the  belt  and  rosettes,  and  lay 
them  down  quickly,  being  fired  by  the  dancing,  and  eager 
for  the  music.  All  the  articles  lie  by  JUAN'S  side  on  the 
ground. ) 

JUAN. 

Good,  good,  my  docile  wild-cats!  Now  I  think  the 
tunes  are  all  alive  again.  Now  you  may  dance  and  sing 
too.  Hinda,  my  little  screamer,  lead  off  with  the  song  I 
taught  you,  and  let  us  see  if  the  tune  will  go  right  on  from 
beginning  to  end. 

(He  plays.  The  dance  begins  again,  HINDA  singing.  All 
the  other  boys  and  girls  join  in  the  chorus,  and  all  at  last 
dance  wildly.) 

SONG. 

All  things  journey:  sun  and  moon, 
Morning,  noon,  and  afternoon, 

Night  and  all  her  stars: 
'Twixt  the  east  and  western  bars 

Round  they  journey, 
Come  and  go  ! 

We  go  with  them! 
For  to  roam  and  ever  roam 
Is  the  ZincaWs  loved  home. 

Earth  is  good,  the  hillside  breaks 
By  the  ashen  roots  and  makes 
Hungry  nostrils  glad: 


430  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Then  we  run  till  we  are  mad. 

Like  the  horses, 
And  we  cry, 

None  shall  catch  us  ! 
Swift  winds  wing  us — we  are  free — 
Drink  the  air  —  we  Zincali! 

Falls  the  snow :  the  pine-branch  split, 
Call  the  fire  out,  see  it  flit, 

Through  the  dry  leaves  run, 
Spread  and  glow,  and  make  a  sun 

In  the  dark  tent : 
0  warm  dccrk! 

Warm  as  conies! 

Strong  fire  loves  us,  we  are  warm ! 
Who  the  Zincali  shall  harm  f 

Onward  journey :  fires  are  spent; 
Sunward,  sunward!  lift  the  tent, 

Run  before  the  rain, 
Through  the  pass,  along  the  plain. 

Hurry,  hurry, 

Lift  us,  wind! 

Like  the  horses. 
For  to  roam  and  ever  roam 
Is  the  Zincali 's  loved  home. 

(When  the  dance  is  at  its  height,  HIND  A  breaks  away 
from  the  rest,  and  dances  round  JUAN,  who  is  now 
standing.  As  he  turns  a  little  to  watch  her  movement, 
some  of  the  boys  skip  toward  the  feather,  aigrette,  etc., 
snatch  them  up,  and  run  away,  swiftly  followed  by 
HITA,  TKALLA,  and  the  rest.  HINDA,  as  she  turns 
again,  sees  them,  screams,  and  falls  in  her  whirling; 
but  immediately  gets  up,  and  rushes  after  them,  still 
screaming  with  rage.) 

JUAN. 

Santiago!  these  imps  get  bolder.  Ha  ha!  Sefiora  Hind  a, 
this  finishes  your  lesson  in  ethics.  You  have  seen  the 
advantage  of  giving  up  stolen  goods.  Now  you  see  the 
ugliness  of  thieving  when  practiced  by  others.  That  fable 
of  mine  about  the  tunes  was  excellently  devised.  I  feel 
like  an  ancient  sage  instructing  our  lisping  ancestors.  My 
memory  will  descend  as  the  Orpheus  of  Gypsies.  But  I 


THK   SPANISH    (iYI's^.  431 

pivpan;  u  rod  for  those  rascals.  I'll  bastinado  them 
with  prickly  pears.  It  seems  to  me  these  needles  will  have 
a  sound  moral  teaching  in  them. 

( }\'/iilf  Jr.\  v  takes  a  knife  from  his  belt,  and  surveys  a 
bush  of  the  prickly  pear,  HINDA  returns.) 

JUAN. 

Pray,  Sefiora,  why  do  you  fume?  Did  you  want  to  steal 
my  ornaments  again  yourself? 

HIND  A  (sobbing). 
No;  I  thought  you  would  give  them  me  back  again. 

JUAN. 

What,  did  you  want  the  tunes  to  die  again?  Do  you 
like  finery  better  than  dancing? 

HlNDA. 

Oh,  that  was  a  tale!  I  shall  tell  tales,  too,  when  I  want 
to  get  anything  I  can't  steal.  And  I  know  what  I  will  do. 
I  shall  tell  the  boys  I've  found  some  little  foxes,  and  I  will 
never  say  where  they  are  till  they  give  me  back  the  feather! 

(She  runs  off  again.) 

JUAN. 

Hem!  the  disciple  seems  to  seize  the  mode  sooner  than 
the  matter.  Teaching  virtue  with  this  prickly  pear  may 
only  teach  the  youngsters  to  use  a  new  weapon;  as  your 
teaching  orthodoxy  with  faggots  may  only  bring  up  a 
fashion  of  roasting.  Dios!  my  remarks  grow  too  preg- 
nant— my  wits  get  a  plethora  by  solitary  feeding  on  the 
produce  of  my  own  wisdom. 

(As  he  puts  up  his  knife  again,  HINDA  comes  running 
back,  and  crying,  "Our  Queen!  our  Queen!"  JUAN 
adjusts  ///.-•  ijarmi-ntx  and  his  lute,  while  HIXDA  turns  to 
meet  FEDALMA,  who  wars  a  Moorish  dress,  her  black 
hair  hangimj  rmniil  her  in  plaits,  a  white  turban  on  her 
head,  a  dagger  by  her  side.  She  carries  a  scarf  on  her 
left  arm,  which  sin-  holds  up  ax  <i  shade.) 


432  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

FEDALMA  (patting  HINDA'S  head). 

How  now,  wild  one?    You  are  hot  and  panting.     Go  to 
my  tent,  and  help  Nouna  to  plait  reeds. 

(HiNDA  kisses  FEDALMA'S  hand  and  runs  off.  FEDALMA 
advances  toward  JUAN,  who  kneels  to  take  up  the  edge  of 
her  cymar,  and  kisses  it.) 

JUAN. 
How  is  it  with  you,  lady?    You  look  sad. 

FEDALMA. 

Oh,  I  am  sick  at  heart.     The  eye  of  day, 

The  insistent  summer  sun,  seems  pitiless, 

Shining  in  all  the  barren  crevices 

Of  weary  life,  leaving  no  shade,  no  dark, 

Where  I  may  dream  that  hidden  waters  lie; 

As  pitiless  as  to  some  shipwrecked  man 

Who  gazing  from  his  narrow  shoal  of  sand 

On  the  wide  unspecked  round  of  blue  and  blue 

Sees  that  full  light  is  errorless  despair. 

The  insects'  hum  that  slurs  the  silent  dark 

Startles  and  seems  to  cheat  me,  as  the  tread 

Of  coming  footsteps  cheats  the  midnight  watcher 

Who  holds  her  heart  and  waits  to  hear  them  pause, 

And  hears  them  never  pause,  but  pass  and  die. 

Music  sweeps  by  me  as  a  messenger 

Carrying  a  message  that  is  not  for  me. 

The  very  sameness  of  the  hills  and  sky 

Is  obduracy,  and  the  lingering  hours 

Wait  round  me  dumbly,  like  superfluous  slaves, 

Of  whom  I  want  naught  but  the  secret  news 

They  are  forbid  to  tell.     And,  Juan,  you — 

You,  too,  are  cruel — would  be  over-wise 

In  judging  your  friend's  needs,  and  choose  to  hide 

Something  I  crave  to  know. 

JUAN. 

I,  lady? 

FEDALMA. 

You. 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  433 

JUAN. 

I  never  had  the  virtue  to  hide  aught, 

Save  what  a  man  is  whipped  for  publishing. 

I'm  no  more  reticent  than  the  voluble  air — 

Dote  on  disclosure — never  could  contain 

The  latter  half  of  all  my  sentences, 

But  for  the  need  to  utter  the  beginning. 

My  lust  to  tell  is  so  importunate 

That  it  abridges  every  other  vice, 

And  makes  me  temperate  for  want  of  time. 

I  dull  sensation  in  the  haste  to  say 

'Tis  this  or  that,  and  choke  report  with  surmise. 

Judge,  then,  dear  lady,  if  I  could  be  mute 

When  but  a  glance  of  yours  had  bid  me  speak. 

FEDALMA. 

Nay,  sing  such  falsities! — you  mock  me  worse 
By  speech  that  gravely  seems  to  ask  belief. 
You  are  but  babbling  in  a  part  you  play 

To  please  my  father.     Oh,  'tis  well  meant,  say  you — 
Pity  for  woman's  weakness.     Take  my  thanks. 

JUAN. 

Thanks  angrily  bestowed  are  red-hot  coin 
Burning  your  servant's  palm. 

FEDALMA. 

Deny  it  not, 

You  know  how  many  leagues  this  camp  of  ours 
Lies  from  Bedmar — what  mountains  lie  between — 
Could  tell  me  if  you  would  about  the  Duke — 
That  he  is  comforted,  sees  how  he  gains 
Losing  the  Zmcala,  finds  now  how  slight 
The  thread  Fedalma  made  in  that  rich  web, 
A  Spanish  noble's  life.     No,  that  is  false! 
He  never  would  think  lightly  of  our  love. 
Some  evil  has  befallen  him — he's  slain — 
Has  sought  for  danger  and  has  beckoned  death 
Because  I  made  all  life  seem  treachery. 
Tell  me  the  worst — be  merciful — no  worst, 
Against  the  hideous  painting  of  my  fear, 
Would  not  show  like  a  better. 
33 


434  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

JUAN. 

If  I  speak, 

Will  you  believe  your  slave?     For  truth  is  scant; 
And  where  the  appetite  is  still  to  hear 
And  not  believe,  falsehood  would  stint  it  less. 
How  say  you  ?    Does  your  hunger's  fancy  choose 
The  meagre  fact? 

FED  ALMA  (seating  herself  on  the  ground). 

Yes,  yes,  the  truth,  dear  Juan. 
Sit  now,  and  tell  me  all. 

JUAN. 

That  all  is  naught. 
I  can  unleash  my  fancy  if  you  wish 
And  hunt  for  phantoms:  shoot  an  airy  guess 
And  bring  down  airy  likelihood — some  lie 
Masked  cunningly  to  look  like  royal  truth 
And  cheat  the  shooter,  while  King  Fact  goes  free; 
Or  else  some  image  of  reality 
That  doubt  will  handle  and  reject  as  false 
As  for  conjecture — I  can  thread  the  sky 
Like  any  swallow,  but,  if  you  insist 
On  knowledge  that  would  guide  a  pair  of  feet 
Eight  to  Bedmar,  across  the  Moorish  bounds, 
A  mule  that  dreams  of  stumbling  over  stones 
Is  better  stored. 

FEDALMA. 

h 

And  you  have  gathered  naught 
About  the  border  wars?    No  news,  no  hint 
Of  any  rumors  that  concern  the  Duke — 
Rumors  kept  from  me  by  my  father? 

JUAN. 

None. 

Your  father  trusts  no  secret  to  the  echoes. 
Of  late  his  movements  have  been  hid  from  all 
Save  those  few  hundred  chosen  Gypsy  breasts 
He  carries  with  him.     Think  you  he's  a  man 
To  let  his  projects  slip  from  out  his  belt, 
Then  whisper  him  who  haps  to  find  them  strayed 
To  be  so  kind  as  keep  his  counsel  well? 


THE   SPANISH    GYI'SN.  435 

Why,  if  he  found  me  knowing  aught  too  much, 
I  If  would  straight  gag  or  strangle  me,  and  say, 
"  Poor  hound!  it  was  a  pity  that  his  bark 
Could  chance  to  mar  my  plans:  he  loved  my  daughter — 
The  idle  hound  had  naught  to  do  but  love, 
So  followed  to  the  battle  and  got  crushed." 

FEDALMA  (holding  out  her  hand,  which  JUAN  kisses). 

Good  Juan,  T  could  have  no  nobler  friend. 

You'd  ope  your  veins  and  let  your  life-blood  out 

To  save  another's  pain,  yet  hide  the  deed 

With  jesting — say,  'twas  merest  accident, 

A  sportive  scratch  that  went  by  chance  too  deep — 

And  die  content  with  men's  slight  thoughts  of  you, 

Finding  your  glory  in  another's  joy. 

JUAN. 

Dub  not  my  likings  virtues,  lest  they  get 
A  drug-like  taste,  and  breed  a  nausea. 
Honey's  not  sweet,  commended  as  cathartic. 
Such  names  are  parchment  labels  upon  gems 
Hiding  their  color.     What  is  lovely  seen 
Priced  in  a  tarif  ? — lapis  lazuli, 
Such  bulk,  so  many  drachmas:  amethysts 
Quoted  at  so  much;  sapphires  higher  still. 
The  stone  like  solid  heaven  in  its  blueness 
Is  what  I  care  for,  not  its  name  or  price. 
So,  if  I  live  or  die  to  serve  my  friend, 
'Tis  for  my  love — 'tis  for  my  friend  alone, 
And  not  for  any  rate  that  friendship  bears 
In  heaven  or  on  earth.     Nay,  I  romance — 
I  talk  of  Roland  and  the  ancient  peers. 
In  me  'tis  hardly  friendship,  only  lack 
Of  a  substantial  self  that  holds  a  weight; 
So  I  kiss  larger  things  and  roll  with  them. 

FEDALMA. 

Oh,  you  will  never  hide  your  soul  from  me; 
I've  seen  the  jewel's  flash,  and  know  'tis  there, 
Muffle  it  as  you  will.     That  foam-like  talk 
Will  not  wash  out  a  fear  which  blots  the  good 
Your  presence  brings  me.     Oft  I'm  pierced  afresh 
Through  all  the  pressure  of  my  selfish  griefs. 


436  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

By  thought  of  you.     It  was  a  rash  resolve 
Made  you  disclose  yourself  when  you  kept  watch 
About  the  terrace  wall: — your  pity  leaped, 
Seeing  alone  my  ills  and  not  your  loss, 
Self -doomed  to  exile.     Juan,  you  must  repent. 
'Tis  not  in  nature  that  resolve,  which  feeds 
On  strenuous  actions,  should  not  pine  and  die 
In  these  long  days  of  empty  listlessness. 

JUAN. 

Eepent?    Not  I.     Eepentance  is  the  weight 

Of  indigested  meals  ta'en  yesterday. 

'Tis  for  large  animals  that  gorge  on  prey, 

Not  for  a  honey-sipping  butterfly. 

I  am  a  thing  of  rhythm  and  redondillas — 

The  momentary  rainbow  on  the  spray 

Made  by  the  thundering  torrent  of  men's  lives: 

No  matter  whether  I  am  here  or  there; 

I  still  catch  sunbeams.     And  in  Africa, 

Where  melons  and  all  fruits,  they  say,  grow  large, 

Fables  are  real,  and  the  apes  polite, 

A  poet,  too,  may  prosper  past  belief: 

I  shall  grow  epic,  like  the  Florentine, 

And  sing  the  founding  of  our  infant  state, 

Sing  the  new  Gypsy  Carthage. 

FEDALMA. 

Afrioa 

Would  we  were  there!    Under  another  heaven, 
In  lands  where  neither  love  nor  memory 
Can  plant  a  selfish  hope — in  lands  so  far 
I  should  not  seem  to  see  the  outstretched  arms 
That  seek  me,  or  to  hear  the  voice  that  calls. 
I  should  feel  distance  only  and  despair; 
So  rest  forever  from  the  thought  of  bliss, 
And  wear  my  weight  of  life's  great  chain  unstruggling. 
Juan,  if  I  could  know  he  would  forget — 
Nay,  not  forget,  forgive  me — be  content 
That  I  forsook  him  for  no  joy,  but  sorrow, 
For  sorrow  chosen  rather  than  a  joy 
That  destiny  made  base!     Then  he  would  taste 
No  bitterness  in  sweet,  sad  memory, 
And  I  should  live  unblemished  in  his  thought, 
Hallowed  like  her  who  dies  an  unwed  bride. 


THE    H'AM-H    <rYI'r-Y.  437 

Our  words  have  wings,  but  fly  not  where  we  would. 
Could  mine  but  reach  him,  Juan! 

JUAN. 

Speak  the  wish — 

My  feet  have  wings — I'll  be  your  Mercury. 
I  fear  no  shadowed  perils  by  the  way. 
No  man  will  wear  the  sharpness  of  his  sword 
On  me.     Nay,  I'm  a  herald  of  the  Muse, 
Sacred  for  Moors  and  Spaniards.     I  will  go — 
Will  fetch  you  tidings  for  an  amulet. 
But  stretch  not  hope  too  strongly  toward  that  mark 
As  issue  of  my  wandering.     Given,  I  cross 
Safely  the  Moorish  border,  reach  Bedmar: 
Fresh  counsels  may  prevail  there,  and  the  Duke 
Being  absent  in  the  field,  I  may  be  trapped. 
Men  who  are  sour  at  missing  larger  game 
May  wing  a  chattering  sparrow  for  revenge. 
It  is  a  chance  no  further  worth  the  note 
Than  as  a  warning,  lest  you  feared  worse  ill 
If  my  return  were  stayed.     I  might  be  caged; 
They  would  not  harm  me  else.     Untimely  death, 
The  red  auxiliary  of  the  skeleton, 
Has  too  much  work  on  hand  to  think  of  me; 
Or,  if  he  cares  to  slay  me,  I  shall  fall 
Choked  with  a  grape-stone  for  economy. 
The  likelier  chance  is  that  I  go  and  come, 
Bringing  you  comfort  back. 

PEDALMA  (starts  from  her  seat  and  walks  to  a  little  dis- 
tance, standing  a  few  moments  with  her  back  toward 
JUAN,  then  she  turns  round  quickly,  and  goes  toward 
him). 

No,  Juan,  no! 

Those  yearning  words  came  from  a  soul  infirm, 
Crying  and  struggling  at  the  pain  of  bonds 
Which  yet  it  would  not  loosen.     He  knows  all — 
All  that  he  needs  to  know :  I  said  farewell : 
I  stepped  across  the  cracking  earth  and  knew 
'Twould  yawn  behind  me.     I  must  walk  right  on. 
No,  I  will  not  win  aught  by  risking  you: 
That  risk  would  poison  my  poor  hope.     Besides, 
'Twere  treachery  in  me:  my  father  \\illo 
That  we — all  here — should  rest  within  this  camp. 


438  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

If  I  can  never  live,  like  him,  on  faith 

In  glorious  morrows,  I  am  resolute. 

"While  he  treads  painfully  with  stillest  step 

And  beady  brow,  pressed  'neath  the  weight  of  arms, 

Shall  I,  to  ease  my  fevered  restlessness, 

Eaise  peevish  moans,  shattering  that  fragile  silence? 

No!     On  the  close-thronged  spaces  of  the  earth 

A  battle  rages:  Fate  has  carried  me 

'Mid  the  thick  arrows:  I  will  keep  my  stand — 

Not  shrink  and  let  the  shaft  pass  by  my  breast 

To  pierce  another.     Oh,  'tis  written  large 

The  thing  I  have  to  do.     But  you,  dear  Juan, 

Renounce,  endure,  are  brave,  unurged  by  aught 

Save  the  sweet  overflow  of  your  good  will. 

(She  seats  herself  again.) 

JUAN. 

Nay,  I  endure  naught  worse  than  napping  sheep 

"When  nimble  birds  uproot  a  fleecy  lock 

To  line  their  nest  with.    See!  your  bondsman,  queen, 

The  minstrel  of  your  court,  is  featherless; 

Deforms  your  presence  by  a  moulting  garb; 

Shows  like  a  roadside  bush  culled  of  its  buds. 

Yet,  if  your  graciousness  will  not  disdain 

A  poor  plucked  songster — shall  he  sing  to  you? 

Some  lay  of  afternoons — some  ballad  strain 

Of  those  who  ached  once  but  are  sleeping  now 

Under  the  sun- warmed  flowers?  'Twill  cheat  the  time. 

FEDALMA. 

Thanks,  Juan — later,  when  this  hour  is  passed. 
My  soul  is  clogged  with  self;  it  could  not  float 
On  with  the  pleasing  sadness  of  your  song. 
Leave  me  in  this  green  spot,  but  come  again, — 
Come  with  the  lengthening  shadows. 

JUAN. 

Then  your  slave 
Will  go  to  chase  the  robbers.     Queen,  farewell! 

FEDALMA. 

Best  friend,  my  well-spring  in  the  wilderness! 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  439 

[While  Juan  sped  along  the  stream,  there  came 
Prom  the  dark  tents  a  ringing  joyous  shout 
That  thrilled  Fedalma  with  a  summons  grave 
Yet  welcome,  too.     Straightway  she  rose  and  stood, 
All  languor  banished,  with  a  soul  suspense, 
Like  one  who  waits  high  presence,  listening. 
Was  it  a  message,  or  her  father's  self 
That  made  the  camp  so  glad? 

It  was  himself! 

She  saw  him  now  advancing,  girt  with  arms 
That  seemed  like  idle  trophies  hung  for  show 
Beside  the  weight  and  fire  of  living  strength 
That  made  his  fame.    He  glanced  with  absent  triumph 
As  one  who  conquers  in  some  field  afar 
And  bears  off  unseen  spoil.     But  nearing  her, 
His  terrible  eyes  intense  sent  forth  new  rays — 
A  sudden  sunshine  where  the  lightning  was 
'Twixt  meeting  dark.     All  tenderly  he  laid 
His  hand  upon  her  shoulder;  tenderly, 
His  kiss  upon  her  brow.  ] 

ZABCA. 

My  royal  daughter! 

FEDALMA. 
Father,  I  joy  to  see  your  safe  return. 

ZARCA. 

Nay,  I  but  stole  the  time,  as  hungry  men 

Steal  from  the  morrow's  meal,  made  a  forced  march, 

Left  Hassan  as  mv  watchdog,  all  to  see 

My  daughter,  and  to  feed  her  famished  hope 

With  news  of  promise. 

FEDALMA. 

Is  the  task  achieved 
That  was  to  be  the  herald  of  our  flight? 

ZARCA. 

Not  outwardly,  but  to  my  inward  vision 
Things  are  achieved  when  they  are  well  begun. 
The  perfect  archer  calls  the  deer  liis  own 


440  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

While  yet  the  shaft  is  whistling.     His  keen  eye 

Never  sees  failure,  sees  the  mark  alone. 

You  have  heard  naught,  then — had  no  messenger? 

FEDALMA. 

I,  father?  no:  each  quiet  day  has  fled 

Like  the  same  moth,  returning  with  slow  wing, 

And  pausing  in  the  sunshine. 

ZARCA. 

It  is  well. 

You  shall  not  long  count  days  in  weariness. 
Ere  the  full  moon  has  waned  again  to  new, 
We  shall  reach  Almeria:  Berber  ships 
Will  take  us  for  their  freight,  and  we  shall  go 
With  plenteous  spoil,  not  stolen,  bravely  won 
By  service  done  on  Spaniards.     Do  you  shrink?' 
Are  you  aught  less  than  a  true  Zincala? 

FEDALMA. 
No;  but  I  am  more.     The  Spaniards  fostered  me. 

ZARCA. 

They  stole  you  first,  and  reared  you  for  the  flames. 
I  found  you,  rescued  you,  that  you  might  live 
A  Zincala's  life;  I  saved  you  from  their  doom. 
Your  bridal  bed  had  been  the  rack. 

FEDALMA  (in  a  low  tone). 

They  meant — 
To  seize  me?— ere  he  came? 

ZARCA. 

Yes,  I  know  all. 
They  found  your  chamber  empty. 

FEDALMA  (eagerly}. 

Then  you  know — 
(Checking  herself.} 

Father,  my  soul  would  be  less  laggard,  fed 
With  fuller  trust. 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  441 

ZARCA. 

My  daughter,  I  must  keep 
The  Arab's  secret.     Arabs  are  our  friends, 
Grappling  for  life  with  Christians  who  lay  waste 
Granada's  valleys,  and  with  devilish  hoofs 
Trample  the  young  green  corn,  with  devilish  play 
Fell  blossomed  trees,  and  tear  up  well-pruned  vines: 
Cruel  as  tigers  to  the  vanquished  brave, 
They  wring  out  gold  by  oaths  they  mean  to  break; 
Take  pay  for  pity  and  are  pitiless; 
Then  tinkle  bells  above  the  desolate  earth 
And  praise  their  monstrous  gods,  supposed  to  love 
The  flattery  of  liars.     I  will  strike 
The  full-gorged  dragon.     You,  my  child,  must  watch 
The  battle  with  a  heart,  not  fluttering 
But  duteous,  firm-weighted  by  resolve, 
Choosing  between  two  lives,  like  her  who  holds 
A  dagger  which  must  pierce  one  of  two  breasts, 
And  one  of  them  her  father's.     You  divine — 
I  speak  not  closely,  but  in  parables; 
Put  one  for  many. 

FEDALMA  (collecting  herself  and  looking  firmly  at  ZARCA). 

Then  it  is  your  will 
That  I  ask  nothing? 

ZARCA. 

You  shall  know  enough 
To  trace  the  sequence  of  the  seed  and  flower. 
El  Zagal  trusts  me,  rates  my  counsel  high: 
He.  knowing  I  have  won  a  grant  of  lands 
Within  the  Berber's  realm,  wills  me  to  be 
The  tongue  of  his  good  cause  in  Africa, 
So  gives  us  furtherance  in  our  pilgrimage 
For  service  hoped,  as  well  as  service  done 
In  that  great  feat  of  which  I  am  the  eye, 
And  my  five  hundred  Gypsies  the  best  arm. 
More,  I  am  charged  by  other  noble  Moors 
With  messages  of  weight  to  Telemsan. 
Ha,  your  eye  flashes.     Are  you  glad? 

FEDALMA. 

Yes,  glad 
That  men  ran  irn-ith  trust  ;i  Zinoala. 


442  THE  SPANISH  GYPSY. 

ZARCA. 

Why,  fighting  for  dear  life  men  choose  their  swords 
For  cutting  only,  not  for  ornament. 
What  naught  but  Nature  gives,  man  takes  perforce 
Where  she  bestows  it,  though  in  vilest  place. 
Can  he  compress  invention  out  of  pride, 
Make  heirship  do  the  work  of  muscle,  sail 
Toward  great  discoveries  with  a  pedigree? 
Sick  men  ask  cures,  and  Nature  serves  not  hers 
Daintily  as  a  feast.     A  blacksmith  once 
Founded  a  dynasty,  and  raised  on  high 
The  leathern  apron  over  armies  spread 
Between  the  mountains  like  a  lake  of  steel. 

FEDALMA  (bitterly). 

To  be  contemned,  then,  is  fair  augury. 
That  pledge  of  future  good  at  least  is  ours. 

ZARCA. 

Let  men  contemn  us:  'tis  such  blind  contempt 

That  leaves  the  winged  broods  to  thrive  in  warmth 

Unheeded,  till  they  fill  the  air  like  storms 

So  we  shall  thrive — still  darkly  shall  draw  force 

Into  a  new  and  multitudinous  life 

That  likeness  fashions  to  community, 

Mother  divine  of  customs,  faith  and  laws. 

'Tis  ripeness,  'tis  fame's  zenith  that  kills  hope. 

Huge  oaks  are  dying,  forests  yet  to  come 

Lie  in  the  twigs  and  rotten-seeming  seeds. 

FEDALMA. 

And  our  wild  Zincali?    'Neath  their  rough  husk 
Can  you  discern  such  seed?    You  said  our  band 
Was  the  best  arm  of  some  hard  enterprise; 
They  give  out  sparks  of  virtue,  then,  and  show 
There's  metal  in  their  earth? 

ZARCA. 

Ay,  metal  fine 

In  my  brave  Gypsies.     Not  the  lithest  Moor 
Has  lither  limbs  for  scaling,  keener  eye 
To  mark  the  meaning  of  the  furthest  speck 
That  tells  of  change;  and  they  are  disciplined 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  443 

By  faith  in  me,  to  such  obedience 
As  needs  no  spy.     My  sealers  and  iny  scouts 
Arc  to  the  Moorish  force  they're  leagued  withal 
As  bow-string  to  the  bow;  while  I  their  chief 
Command  the  enterprise  and  guide  the  will 
Of  Moorish  captains,  as  the  pilot  guides 
With  eye-instructed  hand  the  passive  helm. 
For  high  device  is  still  the  highest  force, 
And  he  who  holds  the  secret  of  the  wheel 
May  make  the  rivers  do  what  work  he  would. 
With  thoughts  impalpable  we  clutch  men's  souls, 
Weaken  the  joints  of  armies,  make  them  fly 
Like  dust  and  leaves  before  the  viewless  wind. 
Tell  me  what's  mirrored  in  the  tiger's  heart, 
111  rule  that  too. 

FEDALMA  (wrought  to  a  glow  of  admiration). 

0  my  imperial  father! 

'Tis  where  there  breathes  a  mighty  soul  like  yours 
That  men's  contempt  is  of  good  augury. 

ZARCA  (seizing  both  FEDAI.MA'S  hands,  and  looking  at 
her  uarchinffly). 

And  you,  my  daughter,  what  are  you — if  not 

The  Zincala's  child?     Say,  does  not  his  great  hope 

Thrill  in  your  veins  like  shouts  of  victory? 

?Tis  a  vile  life  that  like  a  garden  pool 

Lies  stagnant  in  the  round  of  personal  loves; 

That  has  no  ear  save  for  the  tickling  lute 

Set  to  small  measures — deaf  to  all  the  beats 

Of  that  large  music  rolling  o'er  the  world: 

A  miserable,  petty  low-roofed  life, 

That  knows  the  mighty  orbits  of  the  skies 

Through  naught  save  light  or  dark  in  its  own  cabin. 

The  very  brutes  will  feel  the  force  of  kind 

And  move  together,  gathering  a  new  soul — 

The  soul  of  multitudes.     Say  now,  my  child, 

You  will  not  falter,  not  look  back  and  long 

For  unfledged  ease  in  some  soft  alien  nest 

The  crane  with  outspread  wing  that  heads  the  file 

Pauses  not,  feds  no  backward  impulses: 

Behind  it  summer  was,  and  is  no  more; 

Before  it  lies  the  summer  it  will  reach 

Or  perish  in  mid-ocean.     You  no  less 


444  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Must  feel  the  force  sublime  of  growing  life. 

New  thoughts  are  urgent  as  the  growth  of  wings; 

The  widening  vision  is  imperious 

As  higher  members  bursting  the  worm's  sheath. 

You  cannot  grovel  in  the  worm's  delights: 

You  must  take  winged  pleasures,  winged  pains. 

Are  you  not  steadfast?     Will  you  live  or  die 

For  aught  b^low  your  royal  heritage? 

To  him  who  holds  the  flickering  brief  torch 

That  lights  a  beacon  for  the  perishing, 

Aught  else  is  crime.     Would  you  let  drop  the  torch? 

FEDALMA. 

Father,  my  soul  is  weak,  the  mist  of  tears 

Still  rises  to  my  eyes,  and  hides  the  goal 

Which  to  your  undimmed  sight  is  fixed  and  clear. 

But  if  I  cannot  plant  resolve  on  hope, 

It  will  stand  firm  on  certainty  of  woe. 

I  choose  the  ill  that  is  most  like  to  end 

With  my  poor  being.     Hopes  have  precarious  life. 

They  are  oft  blighted,  withered,  snapped  sheer  off 

In  vigorous  growth  and  turned  to  rottenness. 

But  faithfulness  can  feed  on  suffering, 

And  knows  no  disappointment.     Trust  in  me! 

If  it  were  needed,  this  poor  trembling  hand 

Should  grasp  the  torch — -strive  not  to  let  it  fall 

Though  it  were  burning  down  close  to  my  flesh, 

No  beacon  lighted  yet:  through  the  damp  dark 

I  should  still  hear  the  cry  of  gasping  swimmers. 

Father,  I  will  be  tme! 

ZAKCA. 

I  trust  that  word. 

And,  for  your  sadnees — you  are  young — the  bruise 
Will  leave  no  mark.     The  worst  of  misery 
Is  when  a  nature  framed  for  noblest  things 
Condemns  itself  in  youth  to  petty  joys, 
And,  sore  athirst  for  air,  breathes  scanty  life 
Gasping  from  out  the  shallows.     You  are  saved 
From  such  poor  doubleness.     The  life  Ave  choose 
Breathes  high,  and  sees  a  full-arched  firmament. 
Our  deeds  shall  speak  like  rock-hewn  messages, 
Teaching  great  purpose  to  the  distant  time. 
Now  I  must  hasten  back.     I  shall  but  speak 


THE    SPANISH    <1YPSY.  445 

To  Nadar  of  the  order  he  must  keep 
In  setting  watch  and  victualing.     The  stars 
And  the  young  moon  must  see  me  at  my  post. 
Nay,  rest  you  here.     Farewell,  my  younger  self — 
Strong-hearted  daughter!     Shall  I  live  in  you 
When  the  earth  covers  me? 

FEDALMA. 

My  father,  death 

Should  give  your  will  divineness,  make  it  strong 
With  the  beseechings  of  a  mighty  soul 
That  left  its  work  unfinished      Kiss  me  now: 

(TJiey  embrace,  and  she  adds  tremulously  as  they  part,) 
And  when  you  see  fair  hair,  be  pitiful. 

(Exit  ZARCA.) 

(FEDALMA  seats  herself  on  the  bank,  leans  her  head  for- 
ward, and  covers  her  face  with  her  drapery.  While  she 
is  seated  thus,  HIXDA  comes  from  the  bank,  with  a 
branch  of  musk  roses  in  her  hand.  Seeing  FEDALMA 
with  head  bent  and  covered,  she  pauses,  and  begins  to 
move  on  tiptoe. ) 

HINDA. 

Our  Queen!     Can  she  be  crying?    There  she  sits 
As  I  did  every  day  when  my  dog  Saad 
Sickened  and  yelled,  and  seemed  to  yell  so  loud 
After  we  buried  him,  I  oped  his  grave. 

(She  comes  forward  on  tiptoe,  kneels  at  FEDALMA'S  feet, 
and  embraces  them.     FEDALMA  uncovers  her  hew  I.) 

FEDALMA. 
Hinda!  what  is  it? 

HINDA. 

Queen,  a  branch  of  roses — 

So  sweet,  you'll  love  to  smell  them.    'Twas  the  last. 
I  climbed  the  bank  to  get  it  before  Tralla, 
And  slipped  and  scratched  my  arm.      But   I   don't 

mind. 
You  love  the  roses — so  do  I.     I  wish 


446  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

The  sky  would  rain  down  roses,  as  they  ram 
From  off  the  shaken  bush.     Why  will  it  not? 
Then  all  the  valley  would  be  pink  and  white 
And  soft  to  tread  on.     They  would  fall  as  light 
As  feathers,  smelling  sweet;  and  it  would  be 
Like  sleeping  and  yet  waking,  all  at  once! 
Over  the  sea,  Queen,  where  we  soon  shall  go, 
Will  it  rain  roses? 

FEDALMA. 

No,  my  prattler,  no! 
It  never  will  rain  roses:  when  we  want 
To  have  more  roses  we  must  plant  more  trees. 
But  you  want  nothing,  little  one — the  world 
Just  suits  you  as  it  suits  the  tawny  squirrels. 
Come,  you  want  nothing. 

HlNDA. 

Yes,  I  want  more  berries — 
Eed  ones — to  wind  about  my  neck  and  arms 
When  I  am  married — on  my  ankles,  too, 
I  want  to  wind  red  berries,  and  on  my  head. 

FEDALMA. 
Who  is  it  you  are  fond  of?    Tell  me,  now. 

HINDA. 

0  Queen,  you  know!     It  could  be  no  one  else 
But  Ismael.     He  catches  all  the  birds, 
Knows  where  the  speckled  fish  are,  scales  the  rocks, 
And  sings  and  dances  with  me  when  I  like. 
How  should  I  marry  and  not  marry  him? 

FEDALMA. 

Should  you  have  loved  him,  had  he  been  a  Moor, 
Or  white  Castilian? 

HIND  A  (starting  to  her  feet,  then  kneeling  again). 

Are  you  angry,  queen? 

Say  why  you  will  think  shame  of  your  poor  Hinda? 
She'd  sooner  be  a  rat  and  hang  on  thorns 
To  parch  until  the  wind  had  scattered  her, 
Than  be  an  outcast,  spit  at  by  her  tribe. 


THE    M'ANIMl    i.YPSY.  I 

FEDALMA. 

I  think  no  evil — am  not  angry,  child. 

But  would  you  part  from  Ismae'l?     Leave  him.  now 

If  your  chief  bade  you — said  it  was  for  good 

To  all  your  tribe  that  you  must  part  from  him? 

HIND  A  (giving  a  sharp  cry}. 
Ah,  will  he  say  so? 

FEDALMA  (almost  fierce  in  her  earnestness). 

Nay,  child,  answer  me. 
Could  you  leave  Ismae'l?  get  into  a  boat 
And  see  the  waters  widen  'twixt  you  two 
Till  all  was  water  and  you  saw  him  not, 
And  knew  that  you  would  never  see  him  more? 
If  'twas  your  chief's  command,  and  if  he  said 
Your  tribe  would  all  be  slaughtered,  die  of  plague, 
Of  famine — madly  drink  each  other's  blood 

HIND  A  (trembling). 

0  Queen,  if  it  is  so,  tell  Ismae'l. 

FEDALMA. 
You  would  obey,  then?  part  from  him  forever? 

HINDA. 

How  could  we  live  else?  With  our  brethren  lost? 
No  marriage  feast?  The  day  would  turn  to  dark. 
A  Zincala  cannot  live  without  her  tribe. 

1  must  obey!     Poor  Ismae'l! — poor  Hinda! 
But  will  it  ever  be  so  cold  and  dark? 

Oh,  I  would  sit  upon  the  rocks  and  cry, 
And  cry  so  long  that  I  could  cry  no  more: 
Then  I  should  go  to  sleep. 

FEDALMA. 

No,  Hinda,  no! 

Thou  never  shalt  be  called  to  part  from  him. 
I  will  have  berries  for  thee,  red  and  black, 
And  I  will  be  so  glad  to  see  thee  glad, 
That  earth  will  seem  to  hold  enough  of  joy 
To  outweigh  all  the  pangs  of  those  who  part. 


448  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Be  comforted,  bright  eyes.     See,  I  will  tie 
These  roses  in  a  crown,  for  thee  to  wear. 

HINDA  (clapping  her  hands,  while  FED  ALMA  puts  the  roses 
on  her  head}. 

Oh,  Fm  as  glad  as  many  little  foxes  — 
I  will  find  Ismael,  and  tell  him  all. 

(She  runs  off.) 
FEDALMA  (alone). 

She  has  the  strength  I  lack.     Within  her  world 

The  dial  has  not  stirred  since  first  she  woke: 

No  changing  light  has  made  the  shadows  die, 

And  taught  her  trusting  soul  sad  difference. 

For  her,  good,  right,  and  law  are  all  summed  up 

In  what  is  possible:  life  is  one  web 

Where  love,  joy,  kindred,  and  obedience 

Lie  fast  and  even,  in  one  warp  and  woof 

With  thirst  and  drinking,  hunger,  food,  and  sleep. 

She  knows  no  struggles,  sees  no  double  path: 

Her  fate  is  freedom,  for  her  will  is  one 

With  her  own  people's  law,  the  only  law 

She  ever  knew.     For  me  —  I  have  fire  within, 

But  on  my  will  there  falls  the  chilling  snow 

Of  thoughts  that  come  as  subtly  as  soft  flakes, 

Yet  press  at  last  with  hard  and  icy  weight. 

I  could  be  firm,  could  give  myself  the  wrench 

And  walk  erect,  hiding  my  life-long  wound, 

If  I  but  saw  the  fruit  of  all  my  pain 

With  that  strong  vision  which  commands  the  soul, 

And  makes  great  awe  the  monarch  of  desire. 

But  now  I  totter,  seeing  no  far  goal: 

I  tread  the  rocky  pass,  and  pause  and  grasp, 

Guided  by  flashes.     When  my  father  comes, 

And  breathes  into  my  soul  his  generous  hope  — 

By  his  own  greatness  making  life  seem  great, 

As  the  clear  heavens  bring  sublimity, 

And  show  earth  larger,  spanned  by  that  blue  vast  — 

Kesolve  is  strong:  I  can  embrace  my  sorrow, 

Nor  nicely  weigh  the  fruit;  possessed  with  need 

Solely  to  do  the  noblest,  though  it  failed  — 

Though  lava  streamed  upon  my  breathing  deed 

Aiid  buried  it  in  night  and  barrenness. 

But  soon  the  glow  dies  out,  the  trumpet  strain 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  440 

That  vibrated  as  strength  through  all  my  limbs 

Is  heard  no  longer;  over  the  wide  scene 

There's  naught  but  chill  gray  silence,  or  the  hum 

And  fitful  discord  of  a  vulgar  world. 

Then  I  sink  helpless — sink  into  the  arms 

Of  all  sweet  memories,  and  dream  of  bliss: 

See  looks  that  penetrate  like  tones;  hear  tones 

That  flash  looks  with  them.     Even  now  I  feel 

Soft  airs  enwrap  me,  as  if  yearning  rays 

Of  some  soft  presence  touched  me  with  their  warmth 

And  brought  a  tender  murmuring 

[While  she  mused, 

A  figure  came  from  out  the  olive  trees 
That  bent  close-whispering  'twixt  the  parted  hills 
Beyond  the  crescent  of  thick  cactus:  paused 
At  sight  of  her;  then  slowly  forward  moved 
With  careful  steps,  and  gently  said,  "FEDALMA!" 
Fearing  lest  fancy  had  enslaved  her  sense, 
She  quivered,  rose,  but  turned  not.     Soon  again: 
"  FEDALMA,  it  is  SILVA!"    Then  she  turned. 
He,  with  bared  head  and  arms  entreating,  beamed 
Like  morning  on  her.     Vision  held  her  still 
One  moment,  then  with  gliding  motion  swift, 
Inevitable  as  the  melting  stream's, 
She  found  her  rest  within  his  circling  arms.] 

FEDALMA. 
0  love,  you  are  living,  and  believe  in  me! 

DON  SILVA. 

Once  more  we  are  together.     Wishing  dies — 
Stifled  with  bliss. 

FEDALMA. 

You  did  not  hate  me,  then — 
Think  me  an  ingrate — think  my  love  was  small 
That  I  forsook  you? 

DON  SILVA. 

Dear,  I  trusted  you 

As  holy  men  trust  God.     You  could  do  naught 
That  was  not  pure  and  loving — though  the  deed 
29 


450  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Might  pierce  me  unto  death.     You  had  less  trust, 
Since  you  suspected  mine.     'Twas  wicked  doubt. 

FEDALMA. 

Nay,  when  I  saw  you  hating  me,  the  fault 
Seemed  in  my  lot — my  bitter  birthright — hers 
On  whom  you  lavished  all  your  wealth  of  love 
As  price  of  naught  but  sorrow.     Then  I  said, 
"  "Pis  better  so.     He  will  be  happier!" 
But  soon  that  thought,  struggling  to  be  a  hope, 
Would  end  in  tears. 

DON  SILVA.. 

It  was  a  era  el  thought. 
Happier!    True  misery  is  not  begun 
Until  I  cease  to  love  thee. 

FEDALMA. 

Silva! 

DON  SILVA. 

Mine! 

(They  stand  a  moment  or  two  in  silence.) 

FEDALMA. 

I  thought  I  had  so  much  to  tell  you,  love— 
Long  eloquent  stories — how  it  all  befell — 
The  solemn  message,  calling  me  away 
To  awful  spousals,  where  my  own  dead  joy, 
A  conscious  ghost,  looked  on  and  saw  me  wed. 

DON  SILVA. 

Oh,  that  grave  speech  would  cumber  our  quick  souls 
Like  bells  that  waste  the  moments  with  their  loudness. 

FEDALMA. 

And  if  it  all  were  said,  'twould  end  in  this, 
That  I  still  loved  you  when  I  fled  away. 
'Tis  no  more  wisdom  than  the  little  birds 
Make  known  by  their  soft  twitter  when  they  feel 
Eacli  other's  heart  beat. 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  451 

DON   SlLVA. 

All  the  deepest  things 

We  now  say  with  our  eyes  and  meeting  pulse; 
Our  voices  need  but  prattle. 

FEDALMA. 

I  forget 
All  the  drear  days  of  thirst  in  this  one  draught. 

(Again  they  are  silent  for  a  few  moments.) 

But  tell  me  how  you  came?    Where  are  your  guards? 
Is  there  no  risk?    And  now  I  look  at  you, 
This  garb  is  strange 

DON  SILVA. 

I  came  alone 

FEDALMA. 

Alone? 

DON  SILVA. 

Yes — fled  in  secret.     There  was  no  way  else 
To  find  you  safely. 

FEDALMA  (letting  one  hand  fall  and  moving  a  little  from 
him  with  a  look  of  sudden  terror,  while  he  clasps  her 
more  firmly  by  the  other  arm). 

Silva! 

DON  SILVA. 

It  is  naught. 

Enough  that  I  am  here.     Now  we  will  cling. 
What  power  shall  hinder  us?    You  left  me  once 
To  set  your  father  free.     That  task  is  done, 
And  you  are  mine  again.     I  have  braved  all 
That  I  might  find  you,  see  your  father,  win 
His  furtherance  in  bearing  you  away 
To  some  safe  refuge.     Are  we  not  betrothed? 

FEDALMA. 
Oh,  I  am  trembling  'neath  the  rush  of  thoughts 


452  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

That  come  like  griefs  at  morning — look  at  me 
With  awful  faces,  from  the  vanishing  haze 
That  momently  had  hidden  them. 

DON  SILVA. 

What  thoughts? 

FEDALMA. 

Forgotten  burials.     There  lies  a  grave 
Between  this  visionary  present  and  the  past. 
Our  joy  is  dead,  and  only  smiles  on  us 
A  loving  shade  from  out  the  place  of  tombs. 

DON  SILVA. 

Your  love  is  faint,  else  aught  that  parted  us 
Would  seem  but  superstition.     Love  supreme 
Defies  dream-terrors — risks  avenging  fires. 
I  have  risked  all  things.     But  your  love  is  faint. 

FEDALMA  (retreating  a  little,  but  keeping  his  hand). 

Silva,  if  now  between  us  came  a  swofd, 
Severed  my  arm,  and  left  our  two  hands  clasped, 
This  poor  maimed  arm  would  feel  the  clasp  till  death. 
What  parts  us  is  a  sword 

(ZAECA  has  been  advancing  in  the  background.  He  has 
drawn  his  sword,  and  now  thrusts  the  naked  blade  between 
them.  DON  SILVA  lets  go  FEDALMA'S  hand,  and  grit*])* 
his  sword.  FEDALMA,  startled  at  first,  stands  firmly, 
as  if  prepared  to  interpose  between  her  Father  and  the 
Duke.) 

ZAECA. 

Ay,  'tis  a  sword 

That  parts  the  Spaniard  and  the  Zincala: 
A  sword  that  was  baptized  in  Christian  blood, 
When  once  a  band,  cloaking  with  Spanish  law 
Their  brutal  rapine,  would  have  butchered  us, 
And  outraged  then  our  women. 

(Resting  the  point  of  his  sword  on  the  ground. ) 

My  lord  Duke, 
I  was  a  guest  within  your  fortress  once 


T11K    SI'AMSII    QT]  453 

Against  my  will;  had  entertainment  too — 

Much  like  a  galley-slave's.     Pray,  have  you  sought 

The  Zincala's  camp  to  find  a  fit  return 

For  that  Castilian  courtesy?  or  rather 

To  make  amends  for  all  our  prisoned  toil 

By  free  bestowal  of  your  presence  here? 

DON  SILVA. 

Chief,  I  have  brought  no  scorn  to  meet  your  scorn. 
I  came  because  love  urged  me — that  deep  love 
I  bear  to  her  whom  you  call  daughter — her 
Whom  I  reclaim  as  my  betrothed  bride. 

ZAKCA. 

Doubtless  you  bring  for  final  argument 
Your  men-at-arms  who  will  escort  your  bride? 

DON  SILVA. 

I  came  alone.     The  only  force  I  bring 
Is  tenderness.     Nay,  I  will  trust  besides 
In  all  the  pleadings  of  a  father's  care 
To  wed  his  daughter  as  her  nurture  bids. 
And  for  your  tribe — whatever  purposed  good 
Your  thoughts  may  cherish,  I  will  make  secure 
With  the  strong  surety  of  a  noble's  power: 
My  wealth  shall  be  your  treasury. 

ZARCA  (with  irony). 

My  thanks! 

To  me  you  offer  liberal  price;  for  her 
Your  love's  beseeching  will  be  force  supreme. 
She  will  go  with  you  as  a  willing  slave, 
Will  give  a  word  of  parting  to  her  father, 
Wave  farewells  to  her  tribe,  then  turn  and  say, 
Now,  my  lord,  I  am  nothing  but  your  bride; 
I  am  quite  culled,  have  neither  root  nor  trunk, 
Now  wear  me  with  your  plume!  " 

DON  Srr.\  \. 

Yours  is  the  wrong 

Feigning  in  me  one  thought  of  her  below 
The  highest  homage.     1  would  make  my  rank 
The  pedestal  of  her  worth;  a  noble's  sword, 


454  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

A  noble's  honor,  her  defense;  his  love 
The  life-long  sanctuary  of  her  womanhood. 

ZARCA. 

I  tell  you,  were  you  King  of  Aragon, 

And  won  my  daughter's  hand,  your  higher  rank 

Would  blacken  her  dishonor.     'Twere  excuse 

If  you  were  beggared,  homeless,  spit  upon, 

And  so  made  even  with  her  people's  lot; 

For  then  she  would  be  lured  by  want,  not  wealth, 

To  be  a  wife  amongst  an  alien  race 

To  whom  her  tribe  owes  curses. 

DON  SILVA. 

Such  blind  hate 

Is  fit  for  beasts  of  prey,  but  not  for  men. 
My  hostile  acts  against  you,  should  but  count 
As  ignorant  strokes  against  a  friend  unknown; 
And  for  the  wrongs  inflicted  on  your  tribe 
By  Spanish  edicts  or  the  cruelty 
Of  Spanish  vassals,  am  I  criminal? 
Love  comes  to  cancel  all  ancestral  hate, 
Subdues  all  heritage,  proves  that  in  mankind 
Union  is  deeper  than  division. 

ZARCA. 

Ay, 

Such  love  is  common:  I  have  seen  it  oft- — 
Seen  many  women  rend  the  sacred  ties 
That  bind  them  in  high  fellowship  with  men, 
Making  them  mothers  of  a  people's  virtue: 
Seen  them  so  leveled  to  a  handsome  steed 
That  yesterday  was  Moorish  property, 
To-day  is  Christian  —  wears  new-fashioned  gear, 
Neighs  to  new  feeders,  and  will  prance  alike 
Under  all  banners,  so  the  banner  be 
A  master's  who  caresses.     Such  light  change 
You  call  conversion;  but  we  Zincali  call 
Conversion  infamy.     Our  people's  faith 
Is  faithfulness;  not  the  rote-learned  belief 
That  we  are  heaven's  highest  favorites, 
But  the  resolve  that  being  most  forsaken 
Among  the  sons  of  men,  we  will  be  true 
Each  to  the  other,  and  our  common  lot. 


T1IE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  455 

You  Christians  burn  men  for  their  heresy: 
Our  vilest  heretic  is  that  Zincala 
Who,  choosing  ease,  forsakes  her  people's  woes. 
The  dowry  of  my  daughter  is  to  be 
Chief  woman  of  her  tribe,  and  rescue  it. 
A  bride  with  such  a  dowry  has  no  match 
Among  the  subjects  of  that  Catholic  Queen 
Who  would  have  Gypsies  swept  into  the  sea 
Or  else  would  have  them  gibbeted. 

DON  SILVA. 

And  yon, 

Fedalma's  father — you  who  claim  the  dues 
Of  fatherhood — will  offer  up  her  youth 
To  mere  grim  idols  of  your  phantasy! 
Worse  than  all  Pagans,  with  no  oracle 
To  bid  you  murder,  no  sure  good  to  win, 
Will  sacrifice  your  daughter — to  no  god, 
But  to  a  ravenous  fire  within  your  soul, 
Mad  hopes,  blind  hate,  that  like  possessing  fiends 
Shriek  at  a  name!     This  sweetest  virgin,  reared 
As  garden  flowers,  to  give  the  sordid  world 
Glimpses  of  perfectness,  you  snatch  and  thrust 
On  dreary  wilds;  in  visions  mad  proclaim 
Semiramis  of  Gypsy  wanderers; 
Doom,  with  a  broken  arrow  in  her  heart, 
To  wait  for  death  'mid  squalid  savages: 
For  what  ?    You  would  be  savior  of  your  tribe; 
So  said  Fedalma's  letter;  rather  say, 
You  have  the  will  to  save  by  ruling  men, 
But  first  to  rule;  and  with  that  flinty  will 
You  cut  your  way,  though  the  first  cut  you  give 
Gash  your  child's  bosom. 

( While  DON  SILVA  has  been  speaking,  ivith  growing  pas- 
sinn,  FEDALMA  has  placed  herself  between  him  and  her 
father. ) 

ZARCA  (with  calm  irony). 

You  are  loud,  my  lord! 
You  only  are  the  reasonable  man ; 
You  have  a  heart,  I  none.     Fedalma's  good 
Is  what  you  sec,  you  cure  for;  while  I  st-ek 
No  good,  not  even  my  own,  urged  on  by  naught 
But  hellish  hunger,  which  must  still  be  fed 


456  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Though  in  the  feeding  it  I  suffer  throes. 

Fume  at  your  own  opinion  as  you  will: 

I  speak  not  now  to  you,  but  to  my  daughter. 

If  she  still  calls  it  good  to  mate  with  you, 

To  be  a  Spanish  duchess,  kneel  at  court, 

And  hope  her  beauty  is  excuse  to  men 

When  women  whisper,  "A  mere  Zincala!" 

If  she  still  calls  it  good  to  take  a  lot 

That  measures  joy  for  her  as  she  forgets 

Her  kindred  and  her  kindred's  misery, 

Nor  feels  the  softness  of  her  downy  couch 

Marred  by  remembrance  that  she  once  forsook 

The  place  that  she  was  born  to — let  her  go! 

If  life  for  her  still  lies  in  alien  love, 

That  forces  her  to  shut  her  soul  from  truth 

As  men  in  shameful  pleasures  shut  out  day; 

And  death,  for  her,  is  to  do  rarest  deeds, 

Which,  even  failing,  leave  new  faith  to  men, 

The  faith  in  human  hearts — then  let  her  go! 

She  is  my  only  offspring;  in  her  veins 

She  bears  the  blood  her  tribe  has  trusted  in; 

Her  heritage  is  their  obedience, 

And  if  I  died  she  might  still  lead  them  forth 

To  plant  the  race  her  lover  now  reviles 

Where  they  may  make  a  nation,  and  may  rise 

To  grander  manhood  than  his  race  can  show; 

Then  live  a  goddess  sanctifying  oaths, 

Enforcing  right,  and  ruling  consciences, 

By  law  deep-graven  in  exalting  deeds, 

Through  the  long  ages  of  her  people's  life. 

If  she  can  leave  that  lot  for  silken  shame, 

For  kisses  honeyed  by  oblivion — 

The  bliss  of  drunkards  or  the  blank  of  fools — 

Then  let  her  go!     You  Spanish  Catholics, 

When  you  are  cruel,  base  and  treacherous, 

For  ends  not  pious,  tender  gifts  to  God, 

And  for  men's  wounds  offer  much  oil  to  churches: 

We  have  no  altars  for  such  healing  gifts 

As  soothe  the  heavens  for  outrage  done  on  earth. 

We  have  no  priesthood  and  no  creed  to  teach 

That  she — the  Zincala — who  might  save  her  race 

And  yet  abandons  it,  may  cleanse  that  blot, 

And  mend  the  curse  her  life  has  been  to  men, 

By  saving  her  own  soul.     Her  one  base  choice 

Is  wrong  unchangeable,  is  poison  shed 


'I'll  I.    SI'AMSII    (,^  P8Y,  457 

Where  men  must  drink,  shed  by  her  poisoning  will. 
Now  choose,  Fedalma! 

tBut  her  choice  was  made, 
er  spoke,  she  moved 

From  where  oblique  with  deprecating  arms 
She  stood  between  the  two  who  swayed  her  heart: 
Slowly  she  moved  to  choose  sublimer  pain; 
Yearning,  yet  shrinking;  wrought  upon  by  awe, 
Her  own  brief  life  seeming  a  little  isle 
Remote  through  visions  of  a  wider  world 
With  fates  close-crowded;  firm  to  slay  her  joy 
That  cut  her  heart  with  smiles  beneath  the  knife, 
Like  a  sweet  babe  foredoomed  by  prophecy. 
She  stood  apart,  yet  near  her  father:  stood 
Hand  clutching  hand,  her  limbs  all  tense  with  will 
That  strove  'gainst  anguish,  eyes  that  seemed  a  soul 
Yearning  in  death  toward  him  she  loved  and  left. 
He  faced  her,  pale  with  passion  and  a  will 
Fierce  to  resist  whatever  might  seem  strong 
And  ask  him  to  submit:  he  saw  one  end — 
He  must  be  conqueror;  monarch  of  his  lot 
And  not  its  tributary.     But  she  spoke 
Tenderly,  pleadingly.] 

FEDALMA. 

My  lord,  farewell! 

JTwas  well  we  met  once  more;  now  we  must  part. 
I  think  we  had  the  chief  of  all  love's  joys 
Only  in  knowing  that  we  loved  each  other. 

Dox  SILVA. 

I  thought  we  loved  with  love  that  clings  till  death, 
Clings  as  brute  mothers  bleeding  to  their  young, 
Still  sheltering,  clutching  it,  though  it  were  dead; 
Taking  the  death-wound  sooner  than  divide. 
I  thought  we  loved  so. 

FEDALMA. 

Silva,  it  is  fate. 

Great  Fate  has  made  me  heiress  of  this  woe. 
You  must  forgive  Fedalma  all  her  debt: 
She  is  <|iiite  In-inured:   it'  she  gave  herself 
Twonld  be  a  self  corrupt  with  stifled  thoughts 


458  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

Of  a  forsaken  better.     It  is  truth 

My  father  speaks:  the  Spanish  noble's  wife 

Were  a  false  Zincala.     No!  I  will  bear 

The  heavy  trust  of  my  inheritance. 

See,  'twas  my  people's  life  that  throbbed  in  me: 

An  unknown  need  stirred  darkly  in  my  soul, 

And  made  me  restless  even  in  my  bliss. 

Oh,  all  my  bliss  was  in  our  love;  but  now 

I  may  not  taste  it:  some  deep  energy 

Compels  me  to  choose  hunger.     Dear,  farewell! 

I  must  go  with  my  people. 

[She  stretched  forth 

Her  tender  hands,  that  oft  had  lain  in  his, 
The  hands  he  knew  so  well,  that  sight  of  them 
Seemed  like  their  touch.     But  he  stood  still  as  death; 
Locked  motionless  by  forces  opposite: 
His  frustrate  hopes  still  battled  with  despair; 
His  will  was  prisoner  to  the  double  grasp 
Of  rage  and  hesitancy.     All  the  way 
Behind  him  he  had  trodden  confident, 
Ruling  munificently  in  his  thought 
This  Gypsy  father.     Now  the  father  stood 
Present  and  silent  and  unchangeable 
As  a  celestial  portent.     Backward  lay 
The  traversed  road,  the  town's  forsaken  wall 
The  risk,  the  daring;  all  around  him  now 
Was  obstacle,  save  where  the  rising  flood 
Of  love  close  pressed  by  anguish  of  denial 
Was  sweeping  him  resistless;  save  where  she 
Gazing  stretched  forth  her  tender  hands,  that  hurt 
Like  parting  kisses.     Then  at  last  he  spoke.] 

DON  SILVA. 

No,  I  can  never  take  those  hands  in  mine. 
Then  let  them  go  forever! 

FEDALMA. 

It  must  be. 

We  may  not  make  this  world  a  paradise 
By  walking  it  together  hand  in  hand, 
With  eyes  that  meeting  feed  a  double  strength 
We  must  be  only  joined  by  pains  divine 


THE    >1'AM.SH    (.M'.SY. 

Of  spirits  blent  iu  mutual  memories. 
Silva,  our  joy  is  dead. 

DON  SILVA. 

But  love  still  lives, 

And  has  a  safer  guard  in  wretchedness. 
Fedalma,  women  know  no  perfect  love: 
Loving  the  strong,  they  can  forsake  the  strong: 
Man  clings  because  the  being  whom  he  loves 
Is  weak  and  needs  him.     I  can  never  turn 
And  leave  you  to  your  difficult  wandering; 
Know  that  you  tread  the  desert,  bear  the  storm, 
Shed  tears,  see  terrors,  faint  with  weariness, 
Yet  live  away  from  you.     I  should  feel  naught 
But  your  imagined  pains:  in  my  own  steps 
See  your  feet  bleeding,  taste  your  silent  tears, 
And  feel  no  presence  but  your  loneliness. 
No,  I  will  never  leave  you! 

ZARCA. 

My  lord  Duke, 

I  have  been  patient,  given  room  for  speech, 
Bent  not  to  move  my  daughter  by  command, 
Save  that  of  her  own  faithfulness.     But  now, 
All  further  words  are  idle  elegies 
Unfitting  times  of  action.     You  are  here 
With  the  safe-conduct  of  that  trust  you  showed 
Coming  unguarded  to  the  Gypsy's  camp. 
I  would  fain  meet  all  trust  with  courtesy 
As  well  as  honor;  but  my  utmost  power 
Is  to  afford  you  Gypsy  guard  to-night 
Within  the  tents  that  keep  the  northward  lines, 
And  for  the  morrow,  escort  on  your  way 
Back  to  the  Moorish  bounds. 

DON  SILVA. 

What  if  my  words 

Were  meant  for  deeds,  decisive  as  a  leap 
Into  the  current?     It  is  not  my  wont 
To  utter  hollo\v  words,  and  speak  resolves 
Like  verses  bandied  in  ;i  madri^il. 
I  spoke  in  action  first:  I  faced  all  risks 
To  find  Fedalma.     Action  speaks  again 


460  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

When  I,  a  Spanish  noble,  here  declare 
That  I  abide  with  her,  adopt  her  lot, 
Claiming  alone  fulfillment  of  her  vows 
As  my  betrothed  wife. 

FEDALMA  (wresting  herself  from  him,  and  standing  oppo- 
site with  a  look  of  terror}. 

Nay,  Silva,  nay! 
You  could  not  live  so  —  spring  from  your  high  place  — 

Dotf  SILVA. 

Yes,  I  have  said  it.     And  you,  chief,  are  bound 
By  her  strict  vows,  no  stronger  fealty 
Being  left  to  cancel  them. 

ZARCA. 

Strong  words,  my  lord! 

Sounds  fatal  as  the  hammer-strokes  that  shape 
The  glowing  metal:  they  must  shape  your  life. 
That  you  will  claim  my  daughter  is  to  say 
That  you  will  leave  your  Spanish  dignities, 
Your  home,  your  wealth,  your  people,  to  become 
Wholly  a  Zincala:  share  our  wanderings, 
And  be  a  match  meet  for  my  daughter's  dower 
By  living  for  her  tribe;  take  the  deep  oath 
That  binds  you  to  us;  rest  within  our  camp, 
Nevermore  hold  command  of  Spanish  men, 
And  keep  my  orders.     See,  my  lord,  you  lock 
A  many-winding  chain  —  a  heavy  chain. 


SILVA. 

I  have  but  one  resolve:  let  the  rest  follow. 

What  is  my  rank?    To-morrow  it  will  be  filled 

By  one  who  eyes  it  like  a  carrion  bird, 

Waiting  for  death.     I  shall  be  no  more  missed 

Than  waves  are  missed  that  leaping  on  the  rock 

Find  there  a  bed  and  rest.     Life's  a  vast  sea 

That  does  its  mighty  errand  without  fail, 

Panting   in    unchanged    strength   though   waves   are 

changing. 

And  I  have  said  it:  she  shall  be  my  people, 
And  where  she  gives  her  life  I  will  give  mine. 
She  shall  not  live  alone,  nor  die  alone. 


THE   .SPANISH   GYPSY.  4f!l 

I  will  elect  my  deeds!  and  be  the  liege 
Not  of  my  birth,  but  of  that  good  alone 
I  have  discerned  and  chosen. 

ZARCA. 

Onr  poor  faith 

Allows  not  rightful  choice,  save  of  the  right 
Our  birth  has  made  for  us.     And  you,  my  lord, 
Can  still  defer  your  choice,  for  some  days'  space. 
I  march  perforce  to-night;  you,  if  you  will, 
Under  aaGypsy  guard,  can  keep  the  heights 
With  silent  Time  that  slowly  opes  the  scroll 
Of  change  inevitable — take  no  oath 
Till  my  accomplished  task  leave  me  at  large 
To  see  you  keep  your  purpose  or  renounce  it. 

DON  SILVA. 

Chief,  do  I  hear  amiss,  or  does  your  speech 
Ring  with  a  doubleness  which  I  had  held 
Most  alien  to  you?     You  would  put  me  off, 
And  cloak  evasion  with  allowance?    No! 
We  will  complete  our  pledges.     I  will  take 
That  oath  which  binds  not  me  alone,  but  you, 
To  join  my  life  forever  with  Fedalma's. 

ZARCA. 

I  wrangle  not — time  presses.     But  the  oath 
Will  leave  you  that  same  post  upon  the  heights; 
Pledged  to  remain  there  while  my  absence  lasts. 
You  are  agreed,  my  lord? 

DON  SILVA. 

Agreed  to  all. 

ZARCA. 

Then  I  will  give  the  summons  to  our  camp. 
We  will  adopt  you  as  a  brother  now, 
After  our  wonted  fashion. 

[Exit  ZARCA.] 
(SlLVA  taki'x  Ft:n.\i  MA'S  limnls.) 

FEDALMA. 

0  my  lord! 


462  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

I  think  the  earth  is  trembling:  naught  is  firm. 
Some  terror  chills  me  with  a  shadowy  grasp. 
Am  I  about  to  wake,  or  do  you  breathe 
Here  in  this  valley?    Did  the  outer  air 
Vibrate  to  fatal  words,  or  did  they  shake 
Only  my  dreaming  soul?    You — join — our  tribe? 

DON  SILVA. 

Is  then  your  love  too  faint  to  raise  belief 
Up  to  that  height? 

FEDALMA. 

Silva,  had  you  but  said 
That  you  would  die — that  were  an  easy  task 
For  you  who  oft  have  fronted  death  in  war. 
^     But  so  to  live  for  me — you,  used  to  rule — 

You  could  not  breathe  the  air  my  father  breathes: 
His  presence  is  subjection.     Go,  my  lord! 
Fly,  while  there  yet  is  time.     Wait  not  to  speak. 
I  will  declare  that  I  refused  your  love — 
Would  keep  no  vows  to  you 

DON  SILVA. 

It  is  too  late. 

You  shall  not  thrust  me  back  to  seek  a  good 
Apart  from  you.     And  what  good?    Why,  to  face 
Your  absence — all  the  want  that  drove  me  forth — 
To  work  the  will  of  a  more  tyrannous  friend 
Than  any  uncowled  father.     Life  at  least 
Gives  choice  of  ills;  forces  me  to  defy, 
But  shall  not  force  me  to  a  weak  defiance. 
The  power  that  threatened  you,  to  master  me, 
That  scorches  like  a  cave-hid  dragon's  breath, 
Sure  of  its  victory  in  spite  of  hate, 
Is  what  I  last  will  bend  to — most  defy. 
Your  father  has  a  chieftain's  ends,  befitting 
A  soldier's  eye  and  arm:  were  he  as  strong 
As  the  Moor's  prophet,  yet  the  prophet  too 
Had  younger  captains  of  illustrious  fame 
Among  the  infidels.     Let  him  command, 
For  when  your  father  speaks,  I  shall  hear  you. 
Life  were  no  gain  if  you  were  lost  to  me: 
I  would  straight  go  and  seek  the  Moorish  walls, 
Challenge  their  bravest  and  embrace  swift  death. 


THE   SPANISH    GY  i  4li:i 

The  Glorious  Mother  and  her  pitying  Son 
Are  not  Inquisitors,  else  their  heaven  were  hell. 
Perhaps  they  hate  their  cruel  worshipers, 
And  let  them  feed  on  lies.     I'll  rather  trust 
They  love  you  and  have  sent  me  to  defend  you. 

FEDALMA. 

I  made  my  creed  so,  just  to  suit  my  mood 
And  smooth  all  hardship,  till  my  father  came 
And  taught  my  soul  by  ruling  it.     Since  then 
I  cannot  weave  a  dreaming  happy  creed 
Where  our  love's  happiness  is  not  accursed. 
My  father  shook  my  soul  awake.     And  you — 
The  bonds  Fedalma  may  not  break  for  you, 
I  cannot  joy  that  you  should  break  for  her. 

DON  SILVA. 

Oh,  Spanish  men  are  not  a  petty  band 
Where  one  deserter  makes  a  fatal  breach. 
Men,  even  nobles,  are  more  plenteous 
Than  steeds  and  armor;  and  my  weapons  left 
Will  find  new  hands  to  wield  them.     Arrogance 
Makes  itself  champion  of  mankind,  and  holds 
God's  purpose  maimed  for  one  hidalgo  lost. 

See  where  your  father  comes  and  brings  a  crowd 
Of  witnesses  to  hear  my  oath  of  love; 
The  low  red  sun  glows  on  them  like  a  fire. 
This  seems  a  valley  in  some  strange  new  world, 
Where  we  have  found  each  other,  my  Fedalma. 


BOOK  IV. 

Now  twice  the  day  had  sunk  from  off  the  hills 
While  Silva  kept  his  watch  there,  with  the  band 
Of  stalwart  Gypsies.     When  the  sun  was  high 
He  slept;  then,  waking,  strained  impatient  eyes 
To  catch  the  promise  of  some  moving  form 
That  might  be  Juan — Juan  who  went  and  came 
To  soothe  two  hearts,  and  claimed  naught  for  his  own: 
Friend  more  divine  than  all  divinities, 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Quenching  his  human  thirst  in  others'  joy. 

All  through  the  lingering  nights  and  pale  chill  dawns 

Juan  had  hovered  near;  with  delicate  sense, 

As  of  some  breath  from  every  changing  mood, 

Had  spoken  or  kept  silence;  touched  his  lute 

To  hint  of  melody,  or  poured  brief  strains 

That  seemed  to  make  all  sorrows  natural, 

Hardly  worth  weeping  for,  since  life  was  short, 

And  shared  by  loving  souls.     Such  pity  welled 

Within  the  minstrel's  heart  of  light-tongued  Juan 

For  this  doomed  man,  who  with  dream-shrouded  eyes 

Had  stepped  into  a  torrent  as  a  brook, 

Thinking  to  ford  it  and  return  at  will. 

And  now  waked  helpless  in  the  eddying  flood, 

Hemmed  by  its  raging  hurry.     Once  that  thought, 

How  easy  wandering  is,  how  hard  and  strict 

The  homeward  way,  had  slipped  from  reverie 

Into  low-murmured  song — (brief  Spanish  song 

'Scaped  him  as  sighs  escape  from  other  men): 

Push  off  the  boat, 
Quit,  quit  the  shore, 

The  stars  will  guide  us  back: — 
0  gathering  cloud, 
0  wide,  wide  sea, 

0  waves  that  keep  no  track! 

On  through  the  pines  ! 
The  pillared  woods, 

Where  silence  breathes  sweet  breath: — 
0  labyrinth, 
0  sunless  gloom, 

The  other  side  of  death  ! 

Such  plaintive  song  had  seemed  to  please  the  Duke — 

Had  seemed  to  melt  all  voices  of  reproach 

To  sympathetic  sadness  ;  but  his  moods 

Had  grown  more  fitful  with  the  growing  hours, 

And  this  soft  murmur  had  the  iterant  voice 

Of  heartless  Echo,  whom  no  pain  can  move 

To  say  aught  else  than  we  have  said  to  her. 

He  spoke,  impatient :  "  Juan,  cease  thy  song. 

Our  whimpering  poesy  and  small-paced"  tunes 

Have  no  more  utterance  than  the  cricket's  chirp 

For  souls  that  carry  heaven  and  hell  within." 


THK    SPAN  LSI  I    (iVl'SV.  4f,:> 

Then  Ju;m,  lightly  :  "True,  my  lord,  I  chirp 
For  lack  of  soul ;  some  hungry  poets  chirp 
For  lack  of  bread.     'Twere  wiser  to  sit  down 
Ard  count  the  star-seed,  till  I  fell  asleep 
With  the  cheap  wine  of  pure  stupidity." 
And  Silva  checked  by  courtesy:  "Nay,  Juan, 
Were  speech  once  good,  thy  song  were  best  of  speech. 
I  meant,  all  life  is  but  poor  mockery; 
Action,  place,  power,  the  visible,  wide  world 
Are  tattered  masquerading  of  this  self, 
This  pulse  of  conscious  mystery;  all  change, 
Whether  to  high  or  low,  is  change  of  rags. 
But  for  her  love,  I  would  not  take  a  good 
Save  to  burn  out  in  battle,  in  a  flame 
Of  madness  that  would  feel  no  mangled  limbs, 
And  die  not  knowing  death,  but  passing  straight 
— Well,  well,  to  other  flames — in  purgatory." 
Keen  Juan's  ear  caught  the  self-discontent 
That  vibrated  beneath  the  changing  tones 
Of  life-contemning  scorn.     Gently  he  said: 
"  But  with  her  love,  my  lord,  the  world  deserves 
A  higher  rate;  were  it  but  masquerade, 
The  rags  were  surely  worth  the  wearing?  "     "  Yes. 
No  misery  shall  force  me  to  repent 
That  I  have  loved  her." 

So  with  willful  talk, 

Fencing  the  wounded  soul  from  beating  winds 
Of  truth  that  came  unasked,  companionship 
Made  the  hours  lighter.     And  the  Gypsy  guard, 
Trusting  familiar  Juan,  were  content, 
At  friendly  hint  from  him,  to  still  their  songs 
And  birsy  jargon  round  the  nightly  fires. 
Such  sounds,  the  quick-conceiving  poet  knew 
Would  strike  on  Silva's  agitated  soul 
Like  mocking  repetition  of  the  oath 
That  bound  him  in  strange  clanship  with  the  tribe 
Of  human  panthers,  flame-eyed,  lithe-limbed,  fierce, 
Unrecking  of  time-woven  subtleties 
And  high  tribunals  of  a  phantom-world. 

But  the  third  day,  though  Silva  southward  gazed 
Till  all  the  shadows  slanted  toward  him,  gazed 
Till  all  the  shadows  died,  no  Juan  came. 
Now  in  his  stead  came  loneliness,  and  Thought 
Inexorable,  fastening  with  firm  chain 
30 


4:66  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

What  is  to  what  hath  been.     Now  awful  Night, 
The  prime  ancestral  mystery,  came  down 
Past  all  the  generations  of  the  stars, 
And  visited  his  soul  with  touch  more  close 
Than  when  he  kept  that  younger,  briefer  watch 
Under  the  church's  roof  beside  his  arms, 
And  won  his  knighthood. 

Well,  this  solitude 

This  company  with  the  enduring  universe, 
Whose  mighty  silence  carrying  all  the  past 
Absorbs  our  history  as  with  a  breath, 
Should  give  him  more  assurance,  make  him  strong 
In  all  contempt  of  that  poor  circumstance 
Called  human  life — customs  and  bonds  and  laws 
Wherewith  men  make  a  better  or  a  worse, 
Like  children  playing  on  a  barren  mound 
Feigning  a  thing  to  strive  for  or  avoid. 
Thus  Silva  argued  with  his  many-voiced  self, 
Whose  thwarted  needs,  like  angry  multitudes, 
Lured  from  the  home  that  nurtured  them  to  strength, 
Made  loud  insurgence.     Thus  he  called  on  Thought, 
On  dexterous  Thought,  with  its  swift  alchemy 
To  change  all  forms,  dissolve  all  prejudice 
Of  man's  long  heritage,  and  yield  him  up 
A  crude  fused  world  to  fashion  as  he  would. 
Thought  played  him  double;  seemed  to  wear  the  yoke 
Of  sovereign  passion  in  the  noon-day  height 
Of  passion's  prevalence;  but  served  anon 
As  tribune  to  the  larger  soul  which  brought 
Loud-mingled  cries  from  every  human  need 
That  ages  had  instructed  into  life. 
He  could  not  grasp  Night's  black  blank  mystery 
And  wear  it  for  a  spiritual  garb 
Creed-proof:  he  shuddered  at  its  passionless  touch. 
On  solitary  souls,  the  universe 
Looks  down  inhospitable;  the  human  heart 
Finds  nowhere  shelter  but  in  human  kind. 
He  yearned  toward  images  that  had  breath  in  them, 
That  sprang  warm  palpitant  with  memories 
From  streets  and  altars,  from  ancestral  homes 
Banners  and  trophies  and  the  cherishing  rays 
Of  shame  and  honor  in  the  eyes  of  man. 
These  made  the  speech  articulate  of  his  soul, 
That  could  not  move  to  utterance  of  scorn 
Save  in  words  bred  by  fellowship;  could  not  feel 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  46? 

Resolve  of  hardest  constancy  to  love 

The  firmer  for  the  sorrows  of  the  loved, 

Save  by  concurrent  energies  high-wrought 

To  sensibilities  transcending  sense 

Through  close  community,  and  long-shared  pains 

Of  far-off  generations.     All  in  vain 

He  sought  the  outlaw's  strength,  and  made  a  right 

Contemning  that  hereditary  right 

Which  held  dim  habitations  in  his  frame, 

Mysterious  haunts  of  echoes  old  and  far, 

The  voice  divine  of  human  loyalty. 

At  home,  among  his  people,  he  had  played 

In  skeptic  ease  with  saints  and  litanies, 

And  thunders  of  the  church  that  deadened  fell 

Through  screens  of  priests  plethoric.    Awe,  unscathed 

By  deeper  trespass,  slept  without  a  dream. 

But  for  such  trespass  as  made  outcasts,  still 

The  ancient  furies  lived  with  faces  new 

And  lurked  with  lighter  slumber  than  of  old 

O'er  Catholic  Spain,  the  land  of  sacred  oaths 

That  might  be  broken. 

Now  the  former  life 

Of  close-linked  fellowship,  the  life  that  made 
His  full-formed  self,  as  the  impregnate  sap 
Of  years  successive  frames  the  full-branched  tree — 
Was  present  in  one  whole;  and  that  great  trust 
His  deed  had  broken  turned  reproach  on  him 
From  faces  of  all  witnesses  who  heard 
His  uttered  pledges;  saw  him  hold  high  place 
Centring  reliance;  use  rich  privilege 
That  bound  him  like  a  victim-nourished  god 
By  tacit  covenant  to  shield  and  bless; 
Assume  the  cross  and  take  his  knightly  oath 
Mature,  deliberate;  faces  human  all, 
And  some  divine  as  well  as  human;  His 
Who  hung  supreme,  the  suffering  Man  divine 
Above  the  altar;  Hers,  the  Mother  pure 
Whose  glance  informed  his  masculine  tenderness 
AVith  deepest  reverence;  the  archangel  armed, 
Trampling  man's  enemy;  all  heroic  forms 
That  lill  the  world  of  faith  with  voices,  hearts, 
And  high  companionship,  to  Silva  now 
Made  but  one  inward  and  insistent  world 
With  faces  of  his  peers,  with  court  and  hall 
And  deference,  and  reverent  vassalage, 


468  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

And  filial  pieties — one  current  strong, 
The  warmly  mingled  life-blood  of  his  mind, 
Sustaining  him  even  when  he  idly  played 
With  rules,  beliefs,  charges,  and  ceremonies 
As  arbitrary  fooling.     Such  revenge 
Is  wrought  by  the  long  travail  of  mankind 
On  him  who  scorns  it,  and  would  shape  his  life 
Without  obedience. 

But  his  warrior's  pride 

Would  take  no  wounds  save  on  the  breast.     He  faced 
The  fatal  crowd:  "I  never  shall  repent! 
If  I  have  sinned,  my  sin  was  made  for  me 
By  men's  perverseness.     There's  no  blameless  life 
Save  for  the  passionless,  no  sanctities 
But  have  the  self-same  roof  and  props  with  crime, 
Or  have  their  roots  close  interlaced  with  wrong. 
If  I  had  loved  her  less,  been  more  a  craven, 
I  had  kept  my  place  and  won  the  easy  praise 
Of  a  true  Spanish  noble.     But  I  loved, 
And,  loving,  dared — not  Death  the  warrior 
But  Infamy  that  binds  and  strips,  and  holds 
The  brand  and  lash.     I  have  dared  all  for  her. 
She  was  my  good — what  other  men  call  heaven, 
And  for  the  sake  of  it  bear  penances; 
Nay,  some  of  old  were  baited,  tortured,  flayed 
To  win  their  heaven.     Heaven  was  their  good, 
She,  mine.     And  I  have  braved  for  her  all  fires 
Certain  or  threatened;  for  I  go  away 
Beyond  the  reach  of  expiation — far  away 
From  sacramental  blessing.     Does  God  bless 
No  outlaw?     Shut  his  absolution  fast 
In  human  breath?    Is  there  no  God  for  me 
Save  him  whose  cross  I  have  forsaken? — Well, 
I  am  forever  exiled — but  with  her! 
She  is  dragged  out  into  the  wilderness; 
I,  with  my  love,  will  be  her  providence. 
I  have  a  right  to  choose  my  good  or  ill, 
A  right  to  damn  myself!    The  ill  is  mine. 
I  never  will  repent ! "     *     *     * 
Thus  Silva,  inwardly  debating,  all  his  ear 
Turned  into  audience  of  a  twofold  mind; 
For  even  in  tumult  full-fraught  consciousness 
Had  plenteous  being  for  a  self  aloof 
That  gazed  and  listened,  like  a  soul  in  dreams 
Weaving  the  wondrous  tale  it  marvels  at. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  409 

But  oft  the  conflict  slackened,  oft  strong  love 
With  tidal  energy  returning  laid 
All  other  restlessness;  Fedalma  came, 
And  with  her  visionary  presence  brought 
What  seemed  a  waking  in  the  warm  spring  morn. 
He  still  was  pacing  on  the  stony  earth 
Under  the  deepening  night;  the  fresh-lit  fires 
Were  flickering  on  dark  forms  and  eyes  that  met 
His  forward  and  his  backward  tread;  but  she, 
She  was  within  him,  making  his  whole  self 
Mere  correspondence  with  her  image;  sense, 
In  all  its  deep  recesses  where  it  keeps 
The  mystic  stores  of  ecstasy,  was  turned 
To  memory  that  killed  the  hour,  like  wine. 
Then  Silva  said,  "She,  by  herself,  is  life. 
What  was  my  joy  before  I  loved  her — what 
Shall  heaven  lure  us  with,  love  being  lost?" — 
For  he  was  young. 

But  now  around  the  fires 
The  Gypsy  band  felt  freer;  Juan's  song 
Was  no  more  there,  nor  Juan's  friendly  ways 
For  links  of  amity  'twixt  their  wild  mood 
And  this  strange  brother,  this  pale  Spanish  duke, 
Who  with  their  Gypsy  badge  upon  his  breast 
Took  readier  place  within  their  alien  hearts 
As  a  marked  captive,  who  would  fain  escape. 
And  Nadar,  who  commanded  them,  had  known 
The  prison  in  Beclmar.     So  now,  in  talk 
Foreign  to  Spanish  ears,  they  said  their  minds, 
Discussed  their  chief's  intent,  the  lot  marked  out 
For  this  new  brother.     Would  he  wed  their  queen? 
And  some  denied,  saying  their  queen  would  wed 
Only  a  Gypsy  duke — one  who  would  join 
Their  bands  in  Telemsiin.     But  others  thought 
Young  Hassan  was  to  wed  her;  said  their  chief 
Would  never  trust  this  noble  of  Castile, 
Who  in  his  very  swearing  was  forsworn. 
And  then  one  fell  to  chanting,  in  wild  notes 
Recurrent  like  the  moan  of  outshut  winds, 
The  adjuration  they  were  wont  to  use 
To  any  Spaniard  who  would  join  their  tribe: 
Words  of  plain  Spanish,  lately  stirred  anew 
And  ready  at  new  impulse.     Soon  the  rest, 
Drawn  to  the  stream  of  sound,  made  unison 
Higher  and  lower,  till  the  tidal  sweep 


470  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Seemed  to  assail  the  Duke  and  close  him  round 

With  force  daemonic.     All  debate  till  now 

Had  wrestled  with  the  urgence  of  that  oath 

Already  broken;  now  the  newer  oath 

Thrust  its  loud  presence  on  him.     He  stood  still, 

Close  bated  by  loud-barking  thoughts — fierce  hounds 

Of  that  Supreme,  the  irreversible  Past. 

The  ZINCALI  sing. 

Brother,  hear  and  take  the  curse, 
Curse  of  soul's  and  body's  throes, 
If  you  hate  not  all  our  foes, 
filing  not  fast  to  all  our  woes, 
Turn  false  Zincalo  I 

May  you  be  accurst 
By  hunger  and  by  thirst 
By  spiked  pangs, 
Starvation's  fangs 
Clutching  you  alone 

When  none  but  peering  vultures  hear  your  moan, 
Curst  by  burning  hands, 
Curst  by  aching  brow, 
When  on  sea-wide  sands 

Fever  lays  you  low; 
By  the  maddening  brain 
When  the  running  water  glistens, 
And  the  deaf  ear  listens,  listens, 
Prisoned  fire  within  the  vein, 
On  the  tongue  and  on  the  lip 

Not  a  sip 

From  the  earth  or  skies; 
Hot  the  desert  lies 
Pressed  into  your  anguish, 
Narrowing  earth  and  narroioing  sky 
Into  lonely  misery. 
Lonely  may  you  languish 
Through  the  day  and  through  the  night. 
Hate  the  darkness,  hate  the  light, 
Pray  and  find  no  ear, 
Feel  no  brother  near 
Till  on  death  you  cry, 
Death  ivho  passes  by, 


THE   SPANISH    GYl'SY.  471 

And  anew  you  groan, 

Scaring  the  vultures  all  to  leave  you  living  lone: 
Curst  by  soul's  and  body's  throes 
If  you  love  the  dark  men's  foes, 
Cling  not  fast  to  all  the  dark  men's  woes, 

Turn  false  Zincalo! 
Swear  to  hate  the  cruel  cross, 

The  silver  cross! 
Glittering,  laughing  at  the  blood 

Shed  below  it  in  a  flood 
W7ien  if  glitters  over  Moorish  porches; 

Laughing  at  the  scent  of  flesh 
When  it  glitters  where  the  faggot  scorches, 
Burning  life's  mysterious  mesh: 
Blood  of  wandering  Israel 
Blood  of  wandering  Ismael; 
Blood,  the  drink  of  Christian  scorn, 
Blood  of  wanderers,  sons  of  morn 
Where  the  life  of  men  began: 
Swear  to  hate  the  cross! — 
Sign  of  all  the  wanderers'  foes, 
Sign  of  all  the  wanderers'  woes — 

"Else  its  curse  light  on  you! 
Else  the  curse  upon  you  light 
Of  its  sharp  red-sworded  might. 
May  it  lie  a  blood-red  blight 
On  all  things  within  your  sight: 
On  the  white  haze  of  the  morn, 
On  the  meadows  and  the  corn, 
On  the  sun  and  on  the  moon, 
On  the  clearness  of  the  noon, 
On  the  darkness  of  the  night. 
May  it  Jill  your  aching  sight — 
Red-cross  sword  and  sword  blood-red — 
Till  it  press  upon  your  head, 
Till  it  lie  within  >;our  bruin. 
Piercing  sharp,  a  cross  of  ;;uiv>, 
Till  it  lie  upon  your  heart, 

Burning  hot,  a  cross  of  fire, 
Till  from  sense  in  every  part 
Pains  have  clustered  like  a  stinging  swarm 

In  the  miss's  form, 

And  you  see  naught  but  the  cross  of  blood, 
And  you  feel  naught  but  tlte  n-oss  of  fire; 
Curst  by  all  the  cro**'*  throes 


472  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

If  you  hate  not  all  our  foes, 
filing  not  fast  to  all  our  woes, 
Turn  false  Zincalo  ! 

A  fierce  delight  was  in  the  Gypsies'  chant; 
They  thought  no  more  of  Silva,  only  felt 
Like  those  broad-chested  rovers  of  the  night 
Who  pour  exuberant  strength  upon  the  air. 
To  him  it  seemed  as  if  the  hellish  rhythm, 
Revolving  in  long  curves  that  slackened  now, 
Now  hurried,  sweeping  round  again  to  slackness, 
Would  cease  no  more.     What  use  to  raise  his  voice, 
Or  grasp  his  weapon?    He  was  powerless  now, 
With  these  new  comrades  of  his  future — he 
Who  had  been  wont  to  have  his  wishes  feared 
And  guessed  at  as  a  hidden  law  for  men. 
Even  the  passive  silence  of  the  night 
That  left  these  howlers  mastery,  even  the  moon, 
Rising  and  staring  with  a  helpless  face, 
Angered  him.     He  was  ready  now  to  fly 
At  some  loud  throat,  and  give  the  signal  so 
For  butchery  of  himself. 

But  suddenly 

The  sounds  that  traveled  toward  no  foreseen  close 
Were  torn  right  off  and  fringed  into  the  night; 
Sharp  Gypsy  ears  had  caught  the  onward  strain 
Of  kindred  voices  joining  in  the  chant. 
All  started  to  their  feet  and  mustered  close, 
Auguring  long-waited  summons.     It  was  come; 
The  summons  to  set  forth  and  join  their  chief. 
Fedalma  had  been  called  and  she  was  gone 
Under  safe  escort,  Juan  following  her; 
The  camp — the  women,  children,  and  old  men — 
Were  moving  slowly  southward  on  the  way 
To  Almeria.     Silva  learned  no  more. 
He  marched  perforce;  what  other  goal  was  his 
Than  where  Fedalma  was?    And  so  he  marched. 
Through  the  dim  passes  and  o'er  rising  hills, 
Not  knowing  whither,  till  the  morning  came, 


THE    >I'.VNI-1I    GYPSY.  473 

The  Moorish  hall  in  the  castle  at  Bedmdr.  TJie  morning 
twilight  dimly  shows  stains  of  blood  on  the  white  marble 
floor;  yet  there  has  been  a  careful  restoration  of  order 
among  the  sparse  objects  of  furniture.  Stretched  on  mats 
lie  three  corpses,  me  faces  bare,  the  bodies  covered  //•////. 
mantles.  A  liftli'  tnti/  off,  with  rolled  matting  for  a 
pillow,  lies  ZARCA,  sleeping.  His  chest  and  arms  are 
bare;  his  weapons,  turban,  mail-shirt  and  other  upper 
garments  He  on  tlie  floor  beside  him.  In  the  outer  gallery 
Zincali  are  pacing,  at  intervals,  past  the  arched  openings. 

ZARCA  (half  rising  and  resting  his  elbow  on  the  pillow 
while  he  looks  round}. 

The  morning!  I  have  slept  for  full  three  hours; 

Slept  without  dreams,  save  of  my  daughter's  face. 

Its  sadness  waked  me.     Soon  she  will  be  here, 

Soon  must  outlive  the  worst  of  all  the  pains 

Bred  by  false  nurture  in  an  alien  home — 

As  if  a  lion  in  fangless  infancy 

Learned  love  of  creatures  that  with  fatal  growth 

It  scents  as  natural  prey,  and  grasps  and  tears, 

Yet  with  heart-hunger  yearns  for,  missing  them. 

She  is  a  lioness.     And  they — the  race 

That  robbed  me  of  her — reared  her  to  this  pain. 

He  will  be  crushed  and  torn.     There  was  no  help. 

But  she,  my  child,  will  bear  it.     For  strong  souls 

Live  like  fire-hearted  suns  to  spend  their  strength 

In  farthest  striving  action;  breathe  more  free 

In  mighty  anguish  than  in  trivial  ease. 

Her  sad  face  waked  me.     I  shall  meet  it  soon 

Waking 

(He  rises  and  stands  looking  at  the  corpses.) 

As  now  I  look  on  these  pale  dead, 
These  blossoming  branches  crushed  beneath  the  fall 
Of  that  broad  trunk  to  which  1  laid  my  axe 
With  fullest  foresight.     So  will  I  ever  face 
In  thought  beforehand  to  its  utmost  reach 
The  consequences  of  my  conscious  deeds; 
So  face  them  after,  bring  them  to  my  bed, 
And  never  drug  my  soul  to  sleep  with  lies. 
If  they  are  cruel,  they  shall  be  arraigned 
By  that  true  name;  tlu-v  shall  be  justified 
By  my  high  purpose,  by  the  clear-seen  good 


474  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

That  grew  into  my  vision  as  I  grew, 
And  makes  my  nature's  function,  the  full  pulse 
Of  inbred  kingship.     Catholics, 
Arabs  and  Hebrews,  have  their  god  apiece 
To  fight  and  conquer  for  them,  or  be  bruised, 
Like  Allah  now,  yet  keep  avenging  stores 
Of  patient  wrath.     The  Zincali  have  no  god 
"Who  speaks  to  them  and  calls  them  his,  unless 
I,  Zarca,  carry  living  in  my  frame 
The  power  divine  that  chooses  them  and  saves. 
"Life  and  more  life  unto  the  chosen,  death 
To  all  things  living  that  would  stifle  them!" 
So  speaks  each  god  that  makes  a  nation  strong; 
Burns  trees  and  brutes  and  slays  all  hindering  men. 
The  Spaniards  boast  their  god  the  strongest  now; 
They  win  most  towns  by  treachery,  make  most  slaves, 
Burn  the  most  vines  and  men,  and  rob  the  most. 
I  fight  against  that  strength,  and  in  my  turn 
Slay  these  brave  young  who  duteously  strove. 
Cruel?  aye,  it  is  cruel.     But,  how  else? 
To  save,  we  kill;  each  blow  we  strike  at  guilt 
Hurts  innocence  with  its  shock.  Men  might  well  seek. 
For  purifying  rites;  even  pious  deeds 
Need  washing.     But  my  cleansing  waters  flow 
Solely  from  my  intent. 

(He  turns  away  from  the  bodies  to  where  Ms  garments  lie, 
but  does  not  lift  them.} 

And  she  must  suffer! 

But  she  has  seen  the  unchangeable  and  bowed 
Her  head  beneath  the  yoke.     And  she  will  walk 
No  more  in  chilling  twilight,  for  to-day 
Rises  our  sun.     The  difficult  night  is  past; 
We  keep  the  bridge  no  more,  but  cross  it;  march 
Forth  to  a  land  where  all  our  wars  shall  be 
With  greedy  obstinate  plants  that  will  not  yield 
Fruit  for  their  nurture.     All  our  race  shall  come 
From  north,  west,  east,  a  kindred  multitude, 
And  make  large  fellowship,  and  raise  inspired 
The  shout  divine,  the  unison  of  resolve. 
So  I,  so  she,  will  see  our  race  redeemed. 
And  their  keen  love  of  family  and  tribe 
Shall  no  more  thrive  on  cunning,  hide  and  lurk 
Jn  petty  arts  of  abject  hunted  life, 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  475 

But  grow  heroic  in  the  sanctioning  light, 
And  feed  with  ardent  blood  a  nation's  heart. 
That  is  my  work;  and  it  is  well  begun. 
On  to  achievement! 

(He  takes  up  the  mail-shirt,  and  looks  at  it,  then  throws  it 
down  again.) 

No,  I'll  none  of  you! 

To-day  there'll  be  no  fighting.  A  few  hours, 
And  I  shall  doff  these  garments  of  the  Moor; 
Till  then  I  will  walk  lightly  and  breathe  high. 

SEPHARDO  (appearing  at  the  archway  leading  into  the 
outer  gallery). 

You  bade  me  wake  vou 

ZAECA. 

Welcome,  Doctor;  see, 
With  that  small  task  I  did  but  beckon  you 
To  graver  work.     You  know  these  corpses? 

SEPHARDO. 

Yes. 

I  would  they  were  not  corpses.     Storms  will  lay 
The  fairest  trees  and  leave  the  withered  stumps. 
This  Alvar  and  the  Duke  were  of  one  age, 
And  very  loving  friends.     I  minded  not 
The  sight  of  Don  Diego's  corpse,  for  death 
Gave  him  some  gentleness,  and  had  he  lived 
I  had  still  hated  him.     But  this  young  Alvar 
Was  doubly  noble,  as  a  gem  that  holds 
Rare  virtues  in  its  lustre;  and  his  death 
Will  pierce  Don  Silva  with  a  poisoned  dart. 
This  fair  and  curly  youth  was  Arias, 
A  son  of  the  Pachecoa:  this  dark  face 

ZARCA. 

Enough!  you  know  their  names.     I  had  divined 
That  they  were  near  the   Duke,  most  like  had  served 
My  daughter,  were  her  friends;  so  rescued  them 
From  being  flung  upon  the  heap  of  slain. 
Beseech  you,  Doctor,  if  you  owe  mo  aught 


476  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

As  having  served  your  people,  take  the  pains 

To  see  these  bodies  buried  decently. 

And  let  their  names  be  writ  above  their  graves, 

As  those  of  brave  young  Spaniards  who  died  well. 

I  needs  must  bear  this  womanhood  in  my  heart — 

Bearing  my  daughter  there.     For  once  she  prayed — 

'Twas  at  our  parting — "  When  you  see  fair  hair 

Be  pitiful."    And  I  am  forced  to  look 

On  fair  heads  living  and  be  pitiless. 

Your  service,  Doctor,  will  be  done  to  her. 

SEPHARDO. 

A  service  doubly  dear.     For  these  young  dead, 
And  one  less  happy  Spaniard  who  still  lives, 
Are  offerings  which  I  wrenched  from  out  my  heart, 
Constrained  by  cries  of  Israel:  while  my  hands 
Eendered  the  victims  at  command,  my  eyes 
Closed  themselves  vainly,  as  if  vision  lay 
Through  those  poor  loopholes  only.     I  will  go 
And  see  the  graves  dug  by  some  cypresses. 

ZAECA. 
Meanwhile  the  bodies  shall  rest  here.     Farewell. 

(Exit  SEPHARDO.) 

Nay,  'tis  no  mockery.     She  keeps  me  so 
From  hardening  with  the  hardness  of  my  acts. 
This  Spaniard  shrouded  in  her  love — I  would 
He  lay  here  too  that  I  might  pity  him. 

Morning. — The  Placa  Santiago  in  Bedmdr.  A  crowd  of 
townsmen  forming  an  outer  circle :  within,  Zincali  and 
Moorish  soldiers  drawn  up  round  the  central  space.  On 
the  higher  ground  in  front  of  the  church  a  stake  with 
faggots  heaped,  and  at  a  little  distance  a  gibbet.  Moorish 
music.  ZARCA  enters,  wearing  his  gold  necklace  with 
the  Gypsy  badge  of  the  flaming  torch  over  the  dress  of  a 
Moorish  captain,  accompanied  by  a  small  band  of  armed 
Zincali,  who  fall  aside  and  range  themselves  with  the 
other  soldiers  while  he  takes  his  stand  in  front  of  the 
stake  and  gibbet.  The  music  ceases,  and  there  is  expect- 
ant s,ilence, 


THE  SPANISH  GYPSY.  477 

ZARCA. 

Men  of  Bedmar,  well-wishers,  and  allies, 

Whether  of  Moorish  or  of  Hebrew  blood, 

Who,  being  galled  by  the  hard  Spaniard's  yoke, 

Have  welcomed  our  quick  conquest  as  release, 

I,  Zarca,  chief  of  Spanish  gypsies,  hold 

By  delegation  of  the  Moorish  king 

Supreme  command  within  this  town  and  fort. 

Nor  will  I,  with  false  show  of  modesty, 

Profess  myself  unworthy  of  this  post. 

For  so  I  should  but  tax  the  giver's  choice. 

And,  as  ye  know,  while  I  was  prisoner  here, 

Forging  the  bullets  meant  for  Moorish  hearts, 

But  likely  now  to  reach  another  mark, 

I  learned  the  secrets  of  the  town's  defense, 

Caught  the  loud  whispers  of  your  discontent, 

And  so  could  serve  the  purpose  of  the  Moor 

As  the  edge's  keenness  serves  the  weapon's  weight. 

My  Zincali,  lynx-eyed  and  lithe  of  limb, 

Tracked  out  the  high  Sierra's  hidden  path, 

Guided  the  hard  ascent,  and  were  the  first 

To  scale  the  walls  and  brave  the  showering  stones. 

In  brief,  I  reached  this  rank  through  service  done 

By  thought  of  mine  and  valor  of  my  tribe, 

Yet  hold  it  but  in  trust,  with  readiness 

To  lav  it  down;  for  we — the  Zincali — 

Will  never  pitch  our  tents  again  on  land 

The  Spaniard  grudges  us;  we  seek  a  home 

Where  we  may  spread  and  ripen  like  the  corn 

By  blessing  of  the  sun  and  spacious  earth. 

Ye  wish  us  well,  I  think,  and  are  our  friends? 

CROWD. 
Long  life  to  Zarca  and  his  Zincali! 

ZARCA. 

Now,  for  the  cause  of  our  assembling  here. 

'Twas  my  command  that  rescued  from  your  hands 

That  Spanish  prior  and  inquisitor 

Whom  in  fierce  retribution  you  had  bound 

And  meant  to  burn,  tied  to  a  planted  cross. 

I  rescued  him  with  promise  that  his  death 

Should  be  more  signal  in  its  justice — made 


478  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

Public  in  fullest  sense,  and  orderly. 

Here,  then,  you  see  the  stake — slow  death  by  fire; 

And  there  a  gibbet — swift  death  by  the  cord. 

Now  hear  me,  Moors  and  Hebrews  of  Bedmar, 

Our  kindred  by  the  warmth  of  eastern  blood! 

Punishing  cruel  wrong  by  cruelty 

We  copy  Christian  crime.     Vengeance  is  just; 

Justly  we  rid  the  earth  of  human  fiends 

Who  carry  hell  for  pattern  in  their  souls. 

But  in  high  vengeance  there  is  noble  scorn; 

It  tortures  not  the  torturer,  nor  gives 

Iniquitous  payment  for  iniquity. 

The  great  avenging  angel  does  not  crawl 

To  kill  the  serpent  with  a  mimic  fang; 

He  stands  erect  with  sword  of  keenest  edge 

That  slays  like  lightning.     So,  too,  we  will  slay 

The  cruel  man;  slay  him  because  he  works 

Woe  to  mankind.     And  I  have  given  command 

To  pile  these  faggots,  not  to  burn  quick  flesh, 

But  for  a  sign  of  that  dire  wrong  to  men 

Which  arms  our  wrath  with  justice.     While,  to  show 

This  Christian  worshiper  that  we  obey 

A  better  law  than  his,  he  shall  be  led 

Straight  to  the  gibbet  and  to  swiftest  death. 

For  I,  the  chieftain  of  the  Gypsies,  will, 

My  people  shed  no  blood  but  what  is  shed 

In  heat  of  battle  or  in  judgment  strict 

With  calm  deliberation  on  the  right. 

Such  is  my  will,  and  if  it  please  you — well. 

CROWD. 
It  pleases  us.     Long  life  to  Zarca! 

ZARCA. 

Hark! 

The  bell  is  striking,  and  they  bring  even  now 
The  prisoner  from  the  fort.     What,  Nadar? 

NADAR  (has  appeared,  cuffing  the  crowd,  and  advancing 
toward  ZARCA  till  he  is  near  enough  to  speak  in  an 
undertone). 

Chiaf, 

I  have  obeyed  your  word,  have  followed  it 
As  water  does  the  furrow  in  the  rock. 


THI     >!•  \Ni.SII    UYPSY.  4;1.! 

ZARCA.. 

Your  baud  is  here? 

NADAR. 
Yes,  and  the  Spaniard  too. 

ZARCA. 
'Twas  so  I  ordered. 

NADAR. 

Ay,  but  this  sleek  hound, 
Who  slipped  his  collar  off  to  join  the  wolves, 
Has  still  a  heart  for  none  but  kenneled  brutes. 
He  rages  at  the  taking  of  the  town, 
Says  all  his  friends  are  butchered;  and  one  corpse 
He  stumbled  on — well,  I  would  sooner  be 
A  murdered  Gypsy's  dog,  and  howl  for  him, 
Than  be  this  Spaniard.     Rage  has  made  him  whiter. 
One  townsman  taunted  him  with  his  escape, 
And  thanked  him  for  so  favoring  us 

ZARCA. 

Enough. 

You  gave  him  my  command  that  he  should  wait 
Within  the  castle,  till  I  saw  him? 

NADAR. 

Yes. 

But  he  defied  me,  broke  away,  ran  loose 
I  know  not  whither;  he  may  soon  be  here. 
I  came  to  warn  you,  lest  he  work  us  harm. 

ZARCA. 

Fear  not,  I  know  the  road  I  travel  by: 

Its  turns  are  no  surprises.     He  who  rules 

Must  humor  full  as  much  as  lie  commands; 

Must  let  men  vow  impossibilities; 

Grant  folly's  prayers  that  hinder  folly's  wish 

And  serve  the  ends  of  wisdom.     Ah,  he  comes! 

[Sweeping  like  some  pale  herald  from  the  dead, 
Whose  shadow-nurtured  eyes,  dazed  by  full  light, 
See  naught  without,  but  give  reverted  sense 


480  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

To  the  souPs  imagery,  Silva  came, 
The  wondering  people  parting  wide  to  get 
Continuous  sight  of  him  as  he  passed  on — 
This  high  hidalgo,  who  through  blooming  years 
Had  shone  on  men  with  planetary  calm, 
Believed-in  with  all  sacred  images 
And  saints  that  must  be  taken  as  they  were, 
Though  rendering  meagre  service  for  men's  praise: 
Bareheaded  now,  carrying  an  unsheathed  sword, 
And  on  his  breast,  where  late  he  bore  the  cross, 
Wearing  the  Gypsy  badge;  his  form  aslant, 
Driven,  it  seemed,  by  some  invisible  chase, 
Eight  to  the  front  of  Zarca.     There  he  paused.] 

DON  SILVA. 

Chief,  you  are  treacherous,  cruel,  devilish! — 

Relentless  as  a  curse  that  once  let  loose 

From  lips  of  wrath,  lives  bodiless  to  destroy, 

And  darkly  traps  a  man  in  nets  of  guilt 

Which  could  not  weave  themselves  in  open  day 

Before  his  eyes.     Oh,  it  was  bitter  wrong 

To  hold  this  knowledge  locked  within  your  mind, 

To  stand  with  waking  eyes  in  broadest  light, 

And  see  me,  dreaming,  shed  my  kindred's  blood. 

'Tis  horrible  that  men  with  hearts  and  hands 

Should  smile  in  silence  like  the  firmament 

And  see  a  fellow-mortal  draw  a  lot 

On  which  themselves  have  written  agony! 

Such  injury  has  no  redress,  no  healing 

Save  what  may  lie  in  stemming  further  ill. 

Poor  balm  for  maiming !     Yet  I  come  to  claim  it. 

ZARCA. 

First  prove  your  wrongs,  and  I  will  hear  your  claim. 

Mind,  you  are  not  commander  of  Bed  mar, 

Nor  duke,  nor  knight,  nor  anything  for  me, 

Save  a  sworn  Gypsy,  subject  with  my  tribe, 

Over  whose  deeds  my  will  is  absolute. 

You  chose  that  lot,  and  would  have  railed  at  me 

Had  I  refused  it  you:  I  warned  you  first 

What  oaths  you  had  to  take 

DON  SILVA. 

You  never  warned  me 


THE   SPANISH    GYl'-l.  481 

That  you  had  linked  yourself  with  Moorish  men 
To  take  this  town  and  fortress  of  Bed  mar — 
Slay  my  near  kinsman,  him  who  held  my  place, 
Our  house's  heir  and  guardian — slay  my  friend, 
My  chosen  brother — desecrate  the  church 
Where  once  my  mother  held  me  in  her  arms, 
Making  the  holy  chrism  holier 
With  tears  of  joy  that  fell  upon  my  brow! 
You  never  warned 

ZARCA. 

I  warned  you  of  your  oath. 

You  shrank  not,  were  resolved,  were  sure  your  place 
Would  never  miss  you,  and  you  had  your  will. 
I  am  no  priest,  and  keep  no  consciences: 
I  keep  my  own  place  and  my  own  command. 

DON  SILVA. 

1  said  my  place  would  never  miss  me — yes! 

A  thousand  Spaniards  died  on  that  same  day 

And  were  not  missed;  their  garments  clothed  the  backs 

That  else  were  bare 

ZARCA. 

But  you  were  just  the  one 
Above  the  thousand,  had  you  known  the  die 
That  fate  was  throwing  then. 

.     DON  SILVA. 

You  knew  it — you! 

With  fiendish  knowledge,  smiling  at  the  end. 
You  knew  what  snares  had  made  my  flying  steps 
Murderous;  you  let  me  lock  my  soul  with  oaths 
Which  your  acts  made  a  hellish  sacrament. 
I  say,  you  knew  this  as  a  fiend  would  know  it, 
And  let  me  damn  myself. 

ZARCA. 

The  deed  was  done 

Before  you  took  your  oath,  or  reached  our  camp, — 
Done  when  you  slipped  in  secret  from  the  post 
'Twas  yours  to  keep,  and  not  to  meditate 
If  others  might  not  fill  it.     For  your  oath, 
81 


482  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

What  man  is  he  who  brandishes  a  sword 
In  darkness,  kills  his  friends,  and  rages  then 
Against  the  night  that  kept  him  ignorant? 
Should  I,  for  one  unstable  Spaniard,  quit 
My  steadfast  ends  as  father  and  as  chief; 
Renounce  my  daughter  and  my  people's  hope, 
Lest  a  deserter  should  be  made  ashamed? 

DON  SILVA. 

Your  daughter — 0  great  God!  I  vent  but  madness. 
The  past  will  never  change.     I  come  to  stem 
Harm  that  may  yet  be  hindered.     Chief — this  stake — 
Tell  me  who  is  to  die!     Are  you  not  bound 
Yourself  to  him  you  took  in  fellowship? 
The  town  is  yours;  let  me  but  save  the  blood 
That  still  is  warm  in  men  who  were  my 

ZARCA. 

Peace! 
They  bring  the  prisoner. 

[Zarca  waved  his  arm 
With  head  averse,  in  peremptory  sign 
That  'twixt  them  now  there  should  be  space  and  silence. 
Most  eyes  had  turned  to  where  the  prisoner 
Advanced  among  his  guards;  and  Silva  too 
Turned  eagerly,  all  other  striving  quelled 
By  striving  with  the  dread  lest  he  should  see 
His  thought  outside  him.     And  he  saw  it  there. 
The  prisoner  was  Father  Isidor: 
The  man  whom  once  he  fiercely  had  accused 
As  author  of  his  misdeeds — whose  designs 
Had  forced  him  into  fatal  secrecy. 
The  imperious  and  inexorable  Will 
Was  yoked,  and  he  who  had  been  pitiless 
To  Silva's  love,  was  led  to  pitiless  death. 
0  hateful  victory  of  blind  wishes — prayers 
Which  hell  had  overheard  and  swift  fulfilled! 
The  triumph  was  a  torture,  turning  all 
The  strength  of  passion  into  strength  of  pain. 
Remorse  was  born  within  him,  that  dire  birth 
Which  robs  all  else  of  nurture — cancerous, 
Forcing  each  pulse  to  feed  its  anguish,  turning 
All  sweetest  residues  of  healthy  life 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  483 

To  fibrous  clutches  of  slow  misery. 

Silva  had  but  rebelled — he  was  not  free  ; 

And  all  the  subtle  cords  that  bound  his  soul 

Were  tightened  by  the  strain  of  one  rash  leap 

Made  in  defiance.     He  accused  no  more, 

But  dumbly  shrank  before  accusing  throngs 

Of  thoughts,  the  impetuous  recurrent  rush 

Of  all  his  past-created,  unchanged  self. 

The  Father  came  bareheaded,  frocked,  a  rope 

Around  his  neck, — but  clad  with  majesty, 

The  strength  of  resolute  undivided  souls 

Who,  owning  law,  obey  it.     In  his  hand 

He  bore  a  crucifix,  and  praying,  gazed 

Solely  on  that  white  image.     But  his  guards 

Parted  in  front,  and  paused  as  they  approached 

The  center  where  the  stake  was.     Isidor 

Lifted  his  eyes  to  look  around  him—calm, 

Prepared  to  speak  last  words  of  willingness 

To  meet  his  death — last  words  of  faith  unchanged, 

That,  working  for  Christ's  kingdom,  he  had  wrought 

Righteously.     But  his  glance  met  Silva's  eyes 

And  drew  him.     Even  images  of  stone 

Look  living  with  reproach  on  him  who  maims, 

Profanes,  defiles  them.     Silva  penitent 

Moved  forward,  would  have  knelt  before  the  man 

Who  still  was  one  with  all  the  sacred  things 

That  came  back  on  him  in  their  sacredness, 

Kindred,  and  oaths,  and  awe,  and  mystery. 

But  at  the  sight,  the  Father  thrust  the  cross 

With  deprecating  act  before  him,  and  his  face 

Pale-quivering,  flashed  out  horror  like  white  light 

Flashed  from  the  angers  sword  that  dooming  drave 

The  sinner  to  the  wilderness.     He  spoke.  ] 

FATHER  ISIDOR. 

Back  from  me,  traitorous  and  accursed  man! 
Defile  not  me,  who  grasp  the  holiest, 
With  touch  or  breath!     Thou  foulest  murderer! 
Fouler  than  Cain  who  struck  his  brother  down 
In  jealous  rage,  thou  for  thy  base  delight 
Hast  oped  the  gate  for  wolves  to  come  and  tear 
Uncounted  brethren,  weak  and  strong  alike, 
The  helpless  priest,  the  warrior  all  unarmed 
Against  a  faithless  leader:  on  thy  head 
Will  rest  the  sacrilege,  on  thy  soul  the  blood. 


484  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

These  blind  barbarians,  misbelievers,  Moors, 

Are  but  as  Pilate  and  his  soldiery; 

Thou,  Judas,  weighted  with  that  heaviest  crime 

Which  deepens  hell!     I  warned  you  of  this  end. 

A  traitorous  leader,  false  to  God  and  man, 

A  knight  apostate,  you  shall  soon  behold 

Above  your  people's  blood  the  light  of  flames 

Kindled  by  you  to  burn  me — burn  the  flesh 

Twin  with  your  father's.     Oh,  most  wretched  man! 

Whose  memory  shall  be  of  broken  oaths — 

Broken  for  lust — I  turn  away  mine  eyes 

Forever  from  you.     See,  the  stake  is  ready 

And  I  am  ready  too. 

DON  SILVA. 

It  shall  not  be! 

(Raising  his  sword,  he  rushes  in  front  of  the  guards  who 
are  advancing,  and  impedes  them.} 

If  you  are  human,  chief,  hear  my  demand! 
Stretch  not  my  soul  upon  the  endless  rack 
Of  this  man's  torture! 

ZARCA. 

Stand  aside,  my  lord! 

Put  up  your  sword.     You  vowed  obedience 
To  me,  your  chief.     It  was  your  latest  vow. 

DON  SILVA. 

No!  hew  me  from  the  spot,  or  fasten  me 
Amid  the  faggots,  too,  if  he  must  burn. 

ZAECA. 

What  should  befall  that  persecuting  monk 

Was  fixed  before  you  came;  no  cruelty, 

No  nicely  measured  torture,  weight  for  weight 

Of  injury,  no  luscious-toothed  revenge 

That  justifies  the  injurer  by  its  joy; 

I  seek  but  rescue  and  security 

For  harmless  men,  and  such  security 

Means  death  to  vipers  and  inquisitors. 

These  faggots  shall  but  innocently  blaze 

In  sign  of  gladness,  when  this  man  is  dead, 


THE   SPANISH    GYPSY.  485 

That  one  more  torturer  has  left  the  earth. 

'Tis  not  for  infidels  to  burn  live  men 

And  ape  the  rules  of  Christian  piety. 

This  hard  oppressor  shall  not  die  by  fire; 

He  mounts  the  gibbet,  dies  a  speedy  death, 

That,  like  a  transfixed  dragon,  he  may  cease 

To  vex  mankind.     Quick,  guards,  and  clear  the  path! 

{As  well-trained  hounds  that  hold  their  fleetness  tense 
n  watchful,  loving  fixity  of  dark  eyes, 
And  move  with  movement  of  their  master's  will, 
The  Gypsies  with  a  wavelike  swiftness  met 
Around  the  Father,  and  in  wheeling  course 
Passed  beyond  Silva  to  the  gibbet's  foot, 
Behind  their  chieftain.     Sudden  left  alone 
With  weapon  bare,  the  multitude  aloof, 
Silva  was  mazed  in  doubtful  consciousness, 
As  one  who  slumbering  in  the  day  awakes 
From  striving  into  freedom,  and  yet  feels 
His  sense  half  captive  to  intangible  tilings; 
Then  with  a  flush  of  new  decision  sheathed 
His  futile  naked  weapon,  and  strode  quick 
To  Zarca,  speaking  with  a  voice  new-toned, 
The  struggling  soul's  hoarse  suffocated  cry 
Beneath  the  grappling  anguish  of  despair.] 

DON  SILVA. 

You,  Zincalo,  devil,  blackest  infidel! 

You  cannot  hate  that  man  as  you  hate  me! 

Finish  your  torture — take  me — lift  me  up 

And  let  the  crowd  spit  at  me — every  Moor 

Shoot  reeds  at  me,  and  kill  me  with  slow  death 

Beneath  the  midday  fervor  of  the  sun — 

Or  crucify  me  with  a  thieving  hound — 

Slake  your  hate  so,  and  I  will  thank  it:  spare  me 

Only  this  man ! 

ZARCA. 

Madman,  I  hate  you  not. 
But  if  I  did,  my  hate  were  poorly  served 
By  my  device,  if  I  should  strive  to  mix 
A  bitterer  misery  for  you  than  to  taste 
With  leisure  of  a  soul  in  unharmed  limbs 
The  flavor  of  your  folly.     For  my  course, 


486  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

It  has  a  goal,  and  takes  no  truant  path 
Because  of  you.     I  am  your  chief:  to  me 
You're  naught  more  than  a  Zincalo  in  revolt. 

DON  SILVA. 

No,  Fm  no  Zincalo!     I  here  disown 
The  name  I  took  in  madness.     Here  I  tear 
This  badge  away.     I  am  a  Catholic  knight, 
A  Spaniard  who  will  die  a  Spaniard's  death! 

[Hark!  while  he  casts  the  badge  upon  the  ground 

And  tramples  on  it,  Silva  hears  a  shout: 

Was  it  a  shout  that  threatened  him?    He  looked 

From  out  the  dizzying  flames  of  his  own  rage 

In  hope  of  adversaries — and  he  saw  above 

The  form  of  Father  Isidor  upswung 

Convulsed  with  martyr  throes;  and  knew  the  shout 

For  wonted  exultation  of  the  crowd 

When  malefactors  die — or  saints,  or  heroes. 

And  now  to  him  that  white-frocked  murdered  form 

Which  hanging  judged  him  as  its  murderer, 

Turned  to  a  symbol  of  his  guilt,  and  stirred 

Tremors  till  then  unwaked.     With  sudden  snatch 

At  something  hidden  in  his  breast,  he  strode 

Eight  upon  Zarca:  at  the  instant,  down 

Fell  the  great  chief,  and  Silva,  staggering  back, 

Heard  not  the  Gypsies'  shriek,  felt  not  the  fangs 

Of  their  fierce  grasp — heard,  felt  but  Zarca's  words 

Which  seemed  his  soul  outleaping  in  a  cry 

And  urging  men  to  run  like  rival  waves 

Whose  rivalry  is  but  obedience.] 

ZARCA  (as  he  falls). 
My  daughter!  call  her!     Call  my  daughter! 

NADAR  (supporting  ZARCA  and  crying  to  the  Gypsies  who 
have  clutched  SILVA). 

Stay! 

Tear  not  the  Spaniard,  tie  him  to  the  stake: 
Hear  what  the  Chief  shall  bid  us — there  is  time! 

[Swiftly  they  tied  him,  pleasing  vengeance  so 
With  promise  that  would  leave  them  free  to  watch 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  487 

Their  stricken  good,  their  Chief  stretched  helplessly 

Pillowed  upon  the  strength  of  loving  limbs. 

He  heaved  low  groans,  but  would  not  spend  his  breath 

In  useless  words:  he  waited  till  she  came, 

Keeping  his  life  within  the  citadel 

Of  one  great  hope.     And  now  around  him  closed 

(But  in  wide  circle,  checked  by  loving  fear) 

His  people  all,  holding  their  wails  suppressed 

Lest  death  believed-in  should  be  over- bold: 

All  life  hung  on  their  Chief — he  would  not  die; 

His  image  gone,  there  were  no  wholeness  left 

To  make  a  world  of  for  the  Zincali's  thought. 

Eager  they  stood,  but  hushed;  the  outer  crowd 

Spoke  only  in  low  murmurs,  and  some  climbed 

And  clung  with  legs  and  arms  on  perilous  coigns, 

Striving  to  see  where  that  colossal  life 

Lay  panting — lay  a  Titan  struggling  still 

To  hold  and  give  the  precious  hidden  fire 

Before  the  stronger  grappled  him.     Above 

The  young  bright  morning  cast  athwart  white  walls 

Her  shadows  blue,  and  with  their  clear-cut  line, 

Mildly  relentless  as  the  dial-hand's, 

Measured  the  shrinking  future  of  an  hour 

Which  held  a  shrinking  hope.     And  all  the  while 

The  silent  beat  of  time  in  each  man's  soul 

Made  aching  pulses. 

But  the  cry,  "She  comes  \" 
Parted  the  crowd  like  waters:  and  she  came. 
Swiftly  as  once  before,  inspired  with  joy, 
She  flashed  across  the  space  and  made  new  light, 
Glowing  upon  the  glow  of  evening, 
So  swiftly  now  she  came,  inspired  with  woe, 
Strong  with  the  strength  of  all  her  father's  pain, 
Thrilling  her  as  with  fire  of  rage  divine 
And  battling  energy.     She  knew — saw  all: 
The  stake  with  Silva  bound — her  father  pierced — 
To  this  she  had  been  born:  a  second  time 
Her  father  called  her  to  the  task  of  life. 

She  knelt  beside  him.     Then  he  raised  himself, 
And  on  her  face  there  flashed  from  his  the  light 
As  of  a  star  that  waned,  but  flames  anew 
In  mighty  dissolution:  'twas  the  flame 
Of  a  surviving  trust,  in  agony. 


488  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

He  spoke  the  parting  prayer  that  was  command, 
Must  sway  her  will,  and  reign  invisibly.] 

ZAKCA. 

My  daughter,  you  have  promised — you  will  live 

To  save  our  people.     In  my  garments  here 

I  carry  written  pledges  from  the  Moor: 

He  will  keep  faith  in  Spain  and  Africa. 

Your  weakness  may  be  stronger  than  my  strength, 

Winning  more  love. 1  cannot  tell  the  end. 

I  held  my  people's  good  within  my  breast. 

Behold,  now  I  deliver  it  to  you. 

See,  it  still  breathes  unstrangled — if  it  dies, 

Let  not  your  failing  will  be  murderer. 

Eise,  tell  our  people  now  I  wait  in  pain 

I  cannot  die  until  I  hear  them  say 
They  will  obey  you. 

[Meek,  she  pressed  her  lips 
With  slow  solemnity  upon  his  brow, 
Sealing  her  pledges.     Firmly  then  she  rose, 
And  met  her  people's  eyes  with  kindred  gaze, 
Dark-flashing,  fired  by  effort  strenuous 
Trampling  on  pain.] 

FEDALMA. 

Ye  Zincali,  all  who  hear  I 
Your  Chief  is  dying:  I,  his  daughter,  live 
To  do  his  dying  will.     He  asks  you  now 
To  promise  me  obedience  as  your  Queen, 
That  we  may  seek  the  land  he  won  for  us, 
And  live  the  better  life  for  which  he  toiled. 
Speak  now,  and  fill  my  father's  dying  ear 
With  promise  that  you  will  obey  him  dead, 
Obeying  me  his  child. 

[Straightway  arose 

A  shout  of  promise,  sharpening  into  cries 
That  seemed  to  plead  despairingly  with  death.] 

THE  ZINCALI. 

We  will  obey!     Our  Chief  shall  never  die! 
We  will  obey  him — will  obey  our  Queen! 


THE   SPANISH    GYl'M.  489 

[The  shout  unanimous,  the  concurrent  rush 

Of  many  voices,  choiring,  shook  the  air 

With  multitudinous  wave:  now  rose,  now  fell, 

Then  rose  again,  the  echoes  following  slow, 

As  if  the  scattered  brethren  of  the  tribe 

Had  caught  afar  and  joined  the  ready  vow. 

Then  some  could  hold  no  longer,  but  must  rush 

To  kiss  his  dying  feet,  and  some  to  kiss 

The  hem  of  their  Queen's  garment.     But  she  raised 

Her  hand  to  hush  them.     "Hark!  your  Chief  may 

speak 

Another  wish."    Quickly  she  kneeled  again, 
While  they  upon  the  ground  kept  motionless, 
With  head  outstretched.     They  heard  his  words;  for 

now, 

Grasping  at  Nadar's  arm,  he  spoke  more  loud, 
As  one  who,  having  fought  and  conquered,  hurls 
His  strength  away  with  hurling  off  his  shield.] 

ZARCA. 

Let  loose  the  Spaniard!  give  him  back  his  sword; 
He  cannot  move  to  any  vengeance  more — 
His  soul  is  locked  'twixt  two  opposing  crimes. 
I  charge  you  let  him  go  unharmed  and  free 
Now  through  your  midst. 

[With  that  he  sank  again — 

His  breast  heaved  strongly  tow'rd  sharp  sudden  falls, 
And  all  his  life  seemed  needed  for  each  breath: 
Yet  once  he  spoke.] 

My  daughter,  lay  your  arm 

Beneath  my  head so bend  and  breathe  on  me. 

I  cannot  see  you  more the  night  is  come. 

Be  strong remember 1  can  only die. 

[His  voice  went  into  silence,  but  his  breast 

Heaved  long  and  moaned:  its  broad  strength  kept  a  life 

That  heard  naught,  saw  naught,  save  what  once  had 

been, 

And  what  might  be  in  days  and  realms  afar — 
Which  now  in  pale  procession  faded  on 
Toward  the  thick  darkness.     And  she  bent  above 
In  sacramental  watch  to  see  great  Death, 
Companion  of  her  future,  who  would  wear 
Forever  in  her  eyes  her  father's  form. 


490  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

And  yet  she  knew  that  hurrying  feet  had  gone 

To  do  the  Chief's  behest,  and  in  her  soul 

He  who  was  once  its  lord  was  being  jarred 

With  loosening  of  cords,  that  would  not  loose 

The  tightening  torture  of  his  anguish.     This — 

Oh,  she  knew  it! — knew  it  as  martyrs  knew 

The  prongs  that  tore  their  flesh,  while  yet  their  tongues 

Kefused  the  ease  of  lies.     In  moments  high 

Space  widens  in  the  soul.     And  so  she  knelt, 

Clinging  with  piety  and  awed  resolve 

Beside  this  altar  of  her  father's  life, 

Seeing  long  travel  under  solemn  suns 

Stretching  beyond  it;  never  turned  her  eyes, 

Yet  felt  that  Silva  passed;  beneld  his  face 

Pale,  vivid,  all  alone,  imploring  her 

Across  black  waters  fathomless. 

And  he  passed. 

The  Gypsies  made  wide  pathway,  shrank  aloof 
As  those  who  fear  to  touch  the  thing  they  hate, 
Lest  hate  triumphant,  mastering  all  the  limbs, 
Should  tear,  bite,  crush,  in  spite  of  hindering  will. 
Slowly  he  walked,  reluctant  to  be  safe 
And  bear  dishonored  life  which  none  assailed; 
Walked  hesitatingly,  all  his  frame  instinct 
With  high-born  spirit,  never  used  to  dread 
Or  crouch  for  smiles,  yet  stung,  yet  quivering 
With  helpless  strength,  and  in  his  soul  convulsed 
By  visions  where  pale  horror  held  a  lamp 
Over  wide-reaching  crime.     Silence  hung  round: 
It  seemed  the  Plaga  hushed  itself  to  hear 
His  footsteps  and  the  Chief's  deep-dying  breath. 
Eyes  quickened  in  the  stillness,  and  the  light 
Seemed  one  clear  gaze  upon  his  misery. 
And  yet  he  could  not  pass  her  without  pause: 
One  instant  he  must  pause  and  look  at  her; 
But  with  that  glance  at  her  averted  head, 
New-urged  by  pain  lie  turned  away  and  went, 
Carrying  forever  with  him  what  he  fled — 
Her  murdered  love — her  love,  a  dear  wronged  ghost, 
Facing  him,  beauteous,  'mid  the  throngs  of  hell. 

Oh  fallen  and  forsaken!  were  no  hearts 
Amid  that  crowd,  mindful  of  what  had  been? — 
Hearts  such  as  wait  on  beggared  royalty, 
Or  silent  watch  by  sinners  who  despair? 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  491 

Silva  had  vanished.     That  dismissed  revenge 
Made  larger  room  for  sorrow  in  fierce  hearts; 
And  sorrow  filled  them.     For  the  Chief  was  dead. 
The  mighty  breast  subsided  slow  to  calm, 
Slow  from  the  face  the  ethereal  spirit  waned, 
As  wanes  the  parting  glory  from  the  heights, 
And  leaves  them  in  their  pallid  majesty. 
Fedalma  kissed  the  marble  lips,  and  said, 
"  He  breathes  no  more."    And  then  a  long  loud  wail, 
Poured  out  upon  the  morning,  made  her  light 
Ghastly  as  smiles  on  some  fair  maniac's  face 
Smiling  unconscious  o'er  her  bridegroom's  corse. 
The  wailing  men  in  eager  press  closed  round, 
And  made  a  shadowing  pall  beneath  the  sun. 
They  lifted  reverent  the  prostrate  strength, 
Sceptred  anew  by  death.     Fedalma  walked 
Tearless,  erect,  following  the  dead — her  cries 
Deep  smothering  in  her  breast,  as  one  w-ho  guides 
Her  children  through  the  wilds,  and  sees  and  knows 
Of  danger  more  than  they,  and  feels  more  pangs, 
Yet  shrinks  not,  groans  not,  bearing  in  her  heart 
Their  ignorant  misery  and  their  trust  in  her. 


BOOK   V. 


THE  eastward  rocks  of  Almeria's  bay 
Answer  long  farewells  of  the  traveling  sun 
With  softest  glow  as  from  an  inward  pulse 
Changing  and  flushing:  all  the  Moorish  ships 
Seem  conscious  too,  and  shoot  out  sudden  shadows; 
Their  black  hulls  snatch  a  glory,  and  their  sails 
Show  variegated  radiance,  gently  stirred 
Like  broad  wings  poised.     Two  galleys  moored  apart 
Show  decks  as  busy  us  a  home  of  ants 
Storing  new  forage;  from  their  sides  the  bouts, 
Slowly  pushed  off,  anon  with  flashing  oar 
Make  transit  to  the  quay's  smooth-quarried  edge, 
Where  thronging  Gypsies  are  in  haste  to  hull- 
Each  as  it  comes  with  grandarnes,  babes  and  wives, 
Or  with  dust-tinted  goods,  the  company 
Of  wandering  years.     Naught  seems  to  lie  unmoved. 


492  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

For  'mid  the  throng  the  lights  aiid  shadows  play, 

And  make  all  surface  eager,  while  the  boats 

Sway  restless  as  a  horse  that  heard  the  shouts 

And  surging  hum  incessant.     Naked  limbs 

With  beauteous  ease  bend,  lift,  and  throw,  or  raise 

High  signaling  hands.    The  black-haired  mother  steps 

Athwart  the  boat's  edge,  and  with  opened  arms, 

A  wandering  Isis  outcast  from  the  gods, 

Leans  toward  her  lifted  little  one.     The  boat 

Full-laden  cuts  the  waves,  and  dirge-like  cries 

Rise  and  then  fall  within  it  as  it  moves 

From  high  to  lower  and  from  bright  to  dark. 

Hither  and  thither,  grave  white-turbaned  Moors 

Move  helpfully,  and  some  bring  welcome  gifts, 

Bright  stuffs  and  cutlery,  and  bags  of  seed 

To  make  new  waving  crops  in  Africa. 

Others  aloof  with  folded  arms  slow-eyed 

Survey  man's  labor,  saying  "God  is  great "; 

Or  seek  with  question  deep  the  Gypsies'  root, 

And  whether  their  false  faith,  being  small,  will  prove 

Less  damning  than  the  copious  false  creeds 

Of  Jews  and  Christians:  Moslem  subtlety 

Found  balanced  reasons,  warranting  suspense 

As  to  whose  hell  was  deepest — 'twas  enough 

That  there  was  room  for  all.     Thus  the  sedate. 

The  younger  heads  were  busy  with  the  tale 

Of  that  great  Chief  whose  exploits  helped  the  Moor. 

And,  talking  still,  they  shouldered  past  their  friends 

Following  some  lure  which  held  their  distant  gaze 

To  eastward  of  the  quay,  where  yet  remained 

A  low  black  tent  close  guarded  all  around 

By  well-armed  Gypsies.     Fronting  it  above, 

Raised  by  stone  steps  that  sought  a  jutting  strand, 

Fedalma  stood  and  marked  with  anxious  watch 

Each  laden  boat  the  remnant  lessening 

Of  cargo  on  the  shore,  or  traced  the  course 

Of  Nadar  to  an  fro  in  hard  command 

Of  noisy  tumult;  imaging  oft  anew 

How  much  of  labor  still  deferred  the  hour 

When  they  must  lift  the  boat  and  bear  away 

Her  father's  coffin,  and  her  feet  must  quit 

This  shore  forever.     Motionless  she  stood, 

Black-crowned  with  wreaths  of  many-shadowed  hair; 

Black-robed,  but  bearing  wide  upon  her  breast 

Her  father's  golden  necklace  and  his  badge. 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  493 

Her  limbs  were  motionless,  but  in  her  eyes 
And  in  her  breathing  lip's  soft  tremulous  curve 
Was  intense  motion  as  of  prisoned  fire 
Escaping  subtly  in  outleaping  thought. 

She  watches  anxiously,  and  yet  she  dreams: 

The  busy  moments  now  expand,  now  shrink 

To  narrowing  swarms  within  the  refluent  space 

Of  changeful  consciousness.     For  in  her  thought 

Already  she  has  left  the  fading  shore, 

Sails  with  her  people,  seeks  an  unknown  land, 

And  bears  the  burning  length  of  weary  days 

That  parching  fall  upon  her  father's  hope, 

Which  she  must  plant  and  see  it  wither  only — 

Wither  and  die.     She  saw  the  end  begun. 

The  Gypsy  hearts  were  not  unfaithful:  she 

Was  centre  to  the  savage  loyalty 

Which  vowed  obedience  to  Zarca  dead. 

But  soon  their  natures  missed  the  constant  stress 

Of  his  command,  that,  while  it  fired,  restrained 

By  urgency  supreme,  and  left  no  play 

To  fickle  impulse  scattering  desire. 

They  loved  their  Queen,  trusted  in  Zarca's  child, 

Would  bear  her  o'er  the  desert  on  their  arms 

And  think  the  weight  a  gladsome  victory; 

But  that  great  force  which  knit  them  into  one, 

The  invisible  passion  of  her  father's  soul, 

That  wrought  them  visibly  into  his  will, 

And  would  have  bound  their  lives  with  permanence, 

Was  gone.     Already  Hassan  and  two  bands, 

Drawn  by  fresh  baits  of  gain,  had  newly  sold 

Their  service  to  the  Moors,  despite  her  call, 

Known  as  the  echo  of  her  father's  will, 

To  all  the  tribe,  that  they  should  pass  with  her 

Straightway  to  Telemsan.     They  were  not  moved 

By  worse  rebellion  than  the  wilful  wish 

To  fashion  their  own  service;  they  still  meant 

To  come  when  it  should  suit  them.     But  she  said, 

This  is  the  cloud  no  bigger  than  a  hand, 

Sure-threatening.     In  a  little  while,  the  tribe 

That  was  to  be  the  ensign  of  the  race, 

And  draw  it  into  conscious  union, 

Itself  would  break  in  small  and  scattered  bands 

That,  living  on  scant  prey,  would  still  disperse 

And  propagate  forgetfulness.     Brief  years, 


494  THE   SPANISH    GYPSY. 

And  that  great  purpose  fed  with  vital  fire 
That  might  have  glowed  for  half  a  century, 
Subduing,  quickening,  shaping,  like  a  sun — 
Would  be  a  faint  tradition,  flickering  low 
In  dying  memories,  fringing  with  dim  light 
The  nearer  dark. 

Far,  far  the  future  stretched 
»        Beyond  that  busy  present  on  the  quay, 

Far  her  straight  path  beyond  it.     Yet  she  watched 
To  mark  the  growing  hour,  and  yet  in  dream 
Alternate  she  beheld  another  track, 
And  felt  herself  unseen  pursuing  it 
Close  to  a  wanderer,  who  with  haggard  gaze 
Looked  out  on  loneliness.     The  backward  years — 
Oh,  she  would  not  forget  them — would  not  drink 
Of  waters  that  brought  rest,  while  he  far  off 
Eemembered.     "Father,  I  renounced  the  joy; 
You  must  forgive  the  sorrow." 

So  she  stood, 

Her  struggling  life  compressed  into  that  hour, 
Yearning,  resolving,  conquering;  though  she  seemed 
Still  as  a  tutelary  image  sent 
To  guard  her  people  and  to  be  the  strength 
Of  some  rock-citadel. 

Below  her  sat 

Slim  mischievous  Hinda,  happy,  red-bedecked 
With  rows  of  berries,  grinning,  nodding  oft, 
And  shaking  high  her  small  dark  arm  and  hand 
Responsive  to  the  black-named  Ismae'l, 
Who  held  aloft  his  spoil,  and  clad  in  skins 
Seemed  the  Boy-prophet  of  the  wilderness 
Escaped  from  tasks  prophetic.     But  anon 
Hinda  would  backward  turn  upon  her  knees, 
And  like  a  pretty  loving  hound  would  bend 
To  fondle  her  Queen's  feet,  then  lift  her  head 
Hoping  to  feel  the  gently  pressing  palm 
Which  touched  the  deeper  sense      Fedalma  knew — 
From  out  the  black  robe  stretched  her  speaking  hand 
And  shared  the  girl's  content. 

So  the  dire  hours 

Burdened  with  destiny — the  death  of  hopes 
Darkening  long  generations,  or  the  birth 
Of  thoughts  undying — such  hours  sweep  along 
In  their  aerial  ocean  measureless 
Myriads  of  little  joys,  that  ripen  sweet 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  495 

And  soothe  the  sorrowful  spirit  of  the  world, 
Groaning  and  travailing  with  the  painful  birth 
Of  slow  redemption. 

But  emerging  now 

From  eastward  fringing  lines  of  idling  men 
Quick  Juan  lightly  sought  the  upward  steps 
Behind  Fedalina,  and  two  paces  off, 
Witli  head  uncovered,  said  in  gentle  tones, 
'  Lady  Fedalina!" — (Juan's  password  now 
Used  by  no  other),  and  Fedalma  turned, 
Knowing  who  sought  her.     He  advanced  a  step, 
And  meeting  straight  her  large  calm  questioning  gaze, 
Warned  her  of  some  grave  purport  by  a  face 
That  told  of  trouble.     Lower  still  he  spoke. 

JUAN. 

Look  from  me,  lady,  toward  a  moving  form 

That  quits  the  crowd  and  seeks  the  lonelier  strand — 

A  tall  and  gray-clad  pilgrim.- 

[Solemnly 

His  low  tones  fell  on  her,  as  if  she  passed 
Into  religious  dimness  among  tombs, 
And  trod  on  names  in  everlasting  rest. 
Lingeringly  she  looked,  and  then  with  voice 
Deep  and  yet  soft,  like  notes  from  some  long  chord 
Kesponsive  to  thrilled  air,  said — ] 

FEDALMA. 

It  is  he! 

[Juan  kept  silence  for  a  little  space, 
With  reverent  caution,  lest  his  lighter  grief 
Might  seem  a  wanton  touch  upon  her  pain. 
But  time  was  urging  him  with  visible  flight, 
Changing  the  shadows:  he  must  utter  all.] 

JUAN. 

That  man  was  young  when  last  I  pressed  his  hand — 
In  that  dread  moment  when  he  left  BedmYir. 
He  has  aged  since,  the  week  has  made  him  gray. 
And  yet  I  knew  him — knew  the  white-streaked  hair 
Before  I  saw  his  face,  as  I  should  know 
The  tear-dimmed  writing  of  a  friend.     See  now — 
Does  he  not  linger — pause? perhaps  expect 


496  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

[Juan  pled  timidly:  Fedalma's  eyes 

Flashed;  and  through  all  her  frame  there  ran  the  shock 

Of  some  sharp-wounding  joy,  like  his  who  hastes 

And  dreads  to  come  too  late,  and  comes  in  time 

To  press  a  loved  hand  dying.     She  was  mute 

And  made  no  gesture:  all  her  being  paused 

In  resolution,  as  some  leonine  wave 

That  makes  a  moment's  silence  ere  it  leaps.] 

.    JUAN. 

He  came  from  Carthagena,  in  a  boat 
Too  slight  for  safety;  yon  small  two-oared  boat 
Below  the  rock;  the  fisher-boy  within 
Awaits  his  signal.     But  the  pilgrim  waits. 

FEDALMA. 

Yes,  I  will  go! — Father,  I  owe  him  this, 

For  loving  me  made  all  his  misery. 

And  we  will  look  once  more — will  say  farewell 

As  in  a  solemn  rite  to  strengthen  us 

For  our  eternal  parting.     Juan,  stay 

Here  in  my  place,  to  warn  me,  were  there  need. 

And  Hinda,  follow  me! 

[All  men  who  watched 
Lost  her  regretfully,  then  drew  content 
From  thought  that  she  must  quickly  come  again, 
And  filled  the  time  with  striving  to  be  near. 

She,  down  the  steps,  along  the  sandy  brink 
To  where  he  stood,  walked  firm;  with  quickened  step 
The  moment  when  each  felt  the  other  saw. 
He  moved  at  sight  of  her:  their  glances  met; 
It  seemed  they  could  no  more  remain  aloof 
Than  nearing  waters  hurrying  into  one. 
Yet  their  steps  slackened  and  they  paused  apart, 
Pressed  backward  by  the  force  of  memories 
Which  reigned  supreme  as  death  above  desire. 
Two  paces  off  they  stood  and  silently 
Looked  at  each  other.     Was  it  well  to  speak? 
Could  speech  be  clearer,  stronger,  tell  them  more 
.    Than  that  long  gaze  of  their  renouncing  love? 
They  passed  from  silence  hardly  knowing  how; 
It  seemed  they  heard  each  other's  thought  before.] 


THE   SPANISH   GYPSY.  497 

DON  SlLVA. 

I  go  to  be  absolved,  to  have  my  life 

Washed  into  fitness  for  an  offering 

To  injured  Spain.     But  I  have  naught  to  give 

For  that  lust  injury  to  her  I  loved 

Better  than  I  loved  Spain.     I  am  accurst 

Above  all  sinners,  being  made  the  curse 

Of  her  I  sinned  for.     Pardon?  Penitence? 

When  they  have  done  their  utmost,  still  beyond 

Out  of  their  reach  stands  Injury  unchanged 

And  changeless.     I  should  see  it  still  in  heaven — 

Out  of  my  reach,  forever  in  my  sight: 

Wearing  your  grief,  'twould  hide  the  smiling  seraphs. 

I  bring  no  puling  prayer,  Fedalma — ask 

No  balm  of  pardon  that  may  soothe  my  soul 

For  others'  bleeding  wounds:  I  am  not  come 

To  say,  "Forgive  me":  you  must  not  forgive, 

For  you  must  see  me  ever  as  I  am — 

Your  father's 

FEDALMA. 

Speak  it  not!     Calamity 
Comes  like  a  deluge  and  o'erflows  our  crimes, 
Till  sin  is  hidden  in  woe.     You — I — we  two, 
Grasping  we  knew  not  what,  that  seemed  delight, 
Opened  the  sluices  of  that  deep. 

Dox  SILVA. 

We  two?— 
Fedalma,  you  were  blameless,  helpless. 

FEDALMA. 

No! 

It  shall  not  be  that  you  did  aught  alone. 
For  when  we  loved  I  willed  to  reign  in  you, 
And  I  was  jealous  even  of  the  day 
If  it  could  gladden  you  apart  from  me. 
And  so,  it  must  be  that  I  shared  each  deed 
Our  love  was  root  of. 

DON  SILVA. 

Dear!  you  share  the  woe — 
Nay,  the  worst  dart  of  vengeance  fell  on  you. 
32 


i98  THE   SPANISH   GYPSY. 

FEDALMA. 

Vengeance!     She  does  but  sweep  us  with  her  skirts — 
She  takes  large  space,  and  lies  a  baleful  light 
Revolving  with  long  years — sees  children's  child  ivn, 
Blights  them  in  their  prime — Oh,  if  two  lovers  leaned 
To  breathe  one  air  and  spread  a  pestilence, 
They  would  but  lie  two  livid  victims  dead 
Amid  the  city  of  the  dying.     We 
With  our  poor  petty  lives  have  strangled  one 
That  ages  watch  for  vainly. 

DON  SILVA. 

Deep  despair 

Fills  all  your  tones  as  with  slow  agony. 
Speak  words  that  narrow  anguish  to  some  shape: 
Tell  me  what  dread  is  close  before  you? 

FEDALMA. 

None. 

No  dread,  but  clear  assurance  of  the  end. 
My  father  held  within  his  mighty  frame 
A  people's  life:  great  futures  died  with  him 
Never  to  rise,  until  the  time  shall  ripe 
Some  other  hero  with  the  will  to  save 
The  outcast  Zincali. 

DON  SILVA. 

And  yet  their  shout — 
I  heard  it — sounded  as  the  plenteous  rush 
Of  full-fed  sources,  shaking  their  wild  souls 
With  power  that  promised  sway. 

FEDALMA. 

Ah,  yes,  that  shout 

Came  from  full  hearts:  they  meant  obedience. 
But  they  are  orphaned:  their  poor  childish  feet 
Are  vagabond  in  spite  of  love,  and  stray 
Forgetful  after  little  lures.     For  me — 
I  am  but  as  the  funeral  urn  that  bears 
The  ashes  of  a  leader. 

DON  SILVA. 

0  great  God! 
What  am  I  but  a  miserable  brand 


THE    SPANISH    GYPSY.  499 

Lit  by  mysterious  wrath?    I  He  cast  down 
A  blackened  branch  upon  the  desolate  ground 
Where  once  I  kindled  ruin.     I  shall  drink 
No  cup  of  purest  water  but  will  taste 
Bitter  with  thy  lone  hopelessness,  Fedalma. 

FEDALMA. 

Nay,  Silva,  think  of  me  as  one  who  sees 
A  light  serene  and  strong  on  one  sole  path 

Which  she  will  tread  till  death 

He  trusted  me,  and  I  will  keep  his  trust: 

My  life  shall  be  its  temple.     I  will  plant 

His  sacred  hope  within  the  sanctuary 

And  die  its  priestess — though  I  die  alone, 

A  hoary  woman  on  the  altar-step, 

Cold  'mid  cold  ashes.     That  is  my  chief  good. 

The  deepest  hunger  of  a  faithful  heart 

Is  faithfulness.     Wish  me  naught  else.     And  you — 

You  too  will  live 

DON  SILVA. 

I  go  to  Home,  to  seek 
The  right  to  use  my  knightly  sword  again; 
The  right  to  fill  my  place  and  live  or  die 
So  that  all  Spaniards  shall  not  curse  my  name. 
I  sat  one  hour  upon  the  barren  rock 
And  longed  to  kill  myself;  but  then  I  said, 
I  will  not  leave  my  name  in  infamy, 
I  will  not  be  perpetual  rottenness 
Upon  the  Spaniard's  air.     If  I  must  sink 
At  last  to  hell,  I  will  not  take  my  stand 
Among  the  coward  crew  who  could  not  bear 
The  harm  themselves  had  done,  which  others  bore. 
My  young  life  yet  may  fill  some  fatal  breach, 
And  I  will  take  no  pardon,  not  my  own, 
Not  God's — no  pardon  idly  on  my  knees: 
But  it  shall  come  to  me  upon  my  feet 
And  in  the  thick  of  action,  and  each  deed 
That  carried  shame  and  wrong  shall  be  the  sting 
That  drives  me  higher  up  the  steep  of  honor 
In  deeds  of  duteous  service  to  that  Spain 
Who  nourished  me  on  her  expectant  breast, 
The  heir  of  highest  gifts.     I  will  not  fling 
My  earthly  being  down  for  carrion 


500  THE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

To  fill  the  air  with  loathing:  I  will  be 

The  living  prey  of  some  fierce  noble  death 

That  leups  upon  me  while  I  move.     Aloud 

I  said,  "  I  will  redeem  my  name,"  and  then — 

I  know  not  if  aloud :  I  felt  the  words 

Drinking  up  all  my  senses — "  She  still  lives. 

I  would  not  quit  the  dear  familiar  earth 

Where  both  of  us  behold  the  self-same  sun, 

Where  there  can  be  no  (strangeness  'twixt  our  thoughts 

So  deep  as  their  communion/'     Eesolute 

I  rose  and  walked. — Fedalma,  think  of  me 

As  one  who  will  regain  the  only  life 

Where  he  is  other  than  apostate — one 

Who  seeks  but  to  renew  and  keep  the  vows 

Of  Spanish  knight  and  noble.     But  the  breach 

Outside  those  vows — the  fatal  second  breach — 

Lies  a  dark  gulf  where  I  have  naught  to  cast, 

Not  even  expiation — poor  pretense, 

Which  changes  naught  but  what  survives  the  past, 

And  raises  not  the  dead.     That  deep  dark  gulf 

Divides  us. 

FEDALMA. 

Yes,  forever.     We  must  walk 
Apart  unto  the  end.     Our  marriage  rite 
Is  our  resolve  that  we  will  each  be  true 
To  high  allegiance,  higher  than  our  love. 
Our  dear  young  love — its  breath  was  happiness! 
But  it  had  grown  upon  a  larger  life 
Which  tore  its  roots  asunder.     We  rebelled — 
The  larger  life  subdued  us.     Yet  we  are  wed; 
For  we  shall  carry  each  the  pressure  deep 
Of  the  other's  soul.     I  soon  shall  leave  the  shore. 
The  winds  to-night  will  bear  me  far  away 
My  lord,  farewell! 

He  did  not  say  "Farewell." 
But  neither  knew  that  he  was  silent.     She, 
For  one  long  moment,  moved  not.    They  knew  naught 
Save  that  they  parted;  for  their  mutual  gaze 
As  with  their  soul's  full  speech  forbade  their  hands 
To  seek  each  other — those  oft-clasping  hands 
Which  had  a  memory  of  their  own,  and  went 
Widowed  of  one  dear  touch  forevermore, 


TUB   SPANISH    GYPSY.  501 

At  last  she  turned  and  with  swift,  movement  passed, 
Beckoning  to  Hinda,  who  was  beading  low 
And  lingered  still  to  wash  her  shells,  but  soon 
Leaping  and  scampering  followed,  while  her  Queen 
Mounted  the  steps  again  and  took  her  place, 
Which  Juan  rendered  silently. 

And  now 

The  press  upon  the  quay  was  thinned;  the  ground 
Was  cleared  of  cumbering  heaps,  the  eager  shouts 
Had  sunk,  and  left  a  murmur  more  restrained 
By  common  purpose.     All  the  men  ashore 
Were  gathering  into  ordered  companies, 
And  with  less  clamor  filled  the  waiting  boats 
As  if  the  speaking  light  commanded  them 
To  quiet  speed:  for  now  the  farewell  glow 
Was  on  the  topmost  heights,  and  where  far  ships 
Were  southward  tending,  tranquil,  slow,  and  white 
Upon  the  luminous  meadow  toward  the  verge. 
The  quay  was  in  still  shadow,  and  the  boats 
Went  sombrely  upon  the  sombre  waves. 
Fedalma  watcned  again;  but  now  her  gaze 
Takes  in  the  eastward  bay,  where  that  small  bark 
Which  held  the  fisher-boy  floats  weightier 
With  one  more  life,  that  rests  upon  the  oar 
Watching  with  her.     He  would  not  go  away 
Till  she  was  gone;  he  would  not  turn  his  face 
Away  from  her  at  parting:  but  the  sea 
Should  widen  slowly  'twixt  their  seeking  eyes. 

The  time  was  coming.     Nadar  had  approached. 
Was  the  Queen  ready?    Would  she  follow  now 
Her  father's  body?    For  the  largest  boat 
Was  waiting  at  the  quay,  the  last  strong  band 
Of  Zincali  had  ranged  themselves  in  lines 
To  guard  her  passage  and  to  follow  her. 
"Yes,  I  am  ready";  and  with  action  prompt 
They  cast  aside  the  Gypsy's  wandering  tomb, 
And  fenced  the  space  from  curious  Moors  who  pressed 
To  see  Chief  Zarca's  coffin  as  it  lay. 
They  raised  it  slowly,  holding  it  aloft 
On  shoulders  proud  to  bear  the  heavy  load. 
Bound  on  the  coffin  lay  the  chieftain's  arms, 
His  Gypsy  garments  and  his  coat  of  mail. 
Fedalma  saw  the  burden  lifted  high, 
And  then  descending  followed.     All  was  stilL 


602  I'HE    SPANISH    GYPSY. 

The  Moors  aloof  could  hear  the  struggling  steps 
Beneath  the  lowered  burden  at  the  boat — 
The  struggling  calls  subdued,  till  safe  released 
It  lay  within,  the  space  around  it  filled 
By  black-haired  Gypsies.     Then  Fedalma  stepped 
From  off  the  shore  and  saw  it  flee  away — 
The  land  that  bred  her  helping  the  resolve 
Which  exiled  her  forever. 

It  was  night 

Before  the  ships  weighed  anchor  and  gave  sail: 
Fresh  Night  emergent  in  her  clearness,  lit 
By  the  large  crescent  moon,  with  Hesperus, 
And  those  great  stars  that  lead  the  eager  host. 
Fedalma  stood  and  watched  the  little  bark 
Lying  jet-black  upon  moon-whitened  waves. 
Silva  was  standing  too.     He  too  divined 
A  steadfast  form  that  held  him  with  its  thought, 
And  eyes  that  sought  him  vanishing:  he  saw 
The  waters  widen  slowly,  till  at  last 
Straining  he  gazed,  and  knew  not  if  he  gazed 
On  aught  but  blackness  overhung  by  stars. 


THE  END. 


NOTES. 


Page  320.     Cactus. 

The  Indian  fig  (Opuntia)  like  the  other  Caclacea,  is  believed  to  have 
been  introduced  into  Europe  from  South  America;  but  every  one 
who  has  been  in  the  south  of  Spain  will  understand  why  the 
anachronism  has  been  chosen. 


Page  402.    Marranos. 

The  name  given  by  the  Spanish  Jews  to  the  multitudes  of  their  race 
converted  to  Christianity  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century  and 
beginning  of  the  fifteenth.  The  lofty  derivation  from  Maran'-all<>i, 
the  Lord  cometh,  seems  hardly  called  for,  seeing  that  marrano  is 
Spanish  for  pig.  The  "old  Christians  "  learned  to  use  the  word  as  a 
term  of  contempt  for  the  "new  Christians,"  or  converted  Jews  and 
their  descendants;  but  not  too  monotonously,  for  they  often  inter- 
changed it  with  the  fine  old  crusted  opprobrium  of  the  name  Jein. 
Still,  many  Marranos  held  the  highest  secular  and  ecclesiastical  prizes 
in  Spain,  and  were  respected  accordingly. 

Page  41 7.     Celestial  Baron. 

The  Spaniards  conceived  their  patron  Santiago  (St.  James),  the 
great  captain  of  their  armies,  as  a  knight  and  baron;  to  them,  the 
incongruity  would  have  lain  in  conceiving  him  simply  as  a  Galilean 
fisherman."  And  their  legend  was  adopted  with  respect  by  devout 
mediaeval  minds  generally.  Dante,  in  an  elevated  passage  of  the 
Paradiao — the  memorable  opening  of  Canto  xxv, — chooses  to  intro- 
duce the  Apostle  James  as  U  barow. 

"  Indi  si  mosse  un  lume  verso  noi 
Di  quella  schiera,  ond  'use!  la  primizia 
Che  lascio  Crisso  de'  vicari  suoi. 
E  la  mia  Donna  piena  de  letizia 
Mi  disse:  Mira,  mini,  ecco  '1  barone, 
Per  cui  laggiii  si  visita  Oalizia. " 

Page  418.     The  Seven  Parts. 

Lai  Siete  Partidas  (The  Seven  Parts)  is  the  title  given  to  the  code  of 
laws  compiled  under  Alfonso  the  Tenth,  who  reigned  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century— 1252-1284.  The  passage  in  the  text 
is  translated  from  Purtidn  II.,  Ley  II.  The  whole  preamble  is  worth 
citing  in  its  old  Spanish: — 

503 


504  NOTES. 

"  Como  deben  ser  escogidos  caballeros. 

"  Antiguamiente  para  facer  caballeros  escogien  de  los  venadores  de 
monte,  que  son  homes  que  sufren  grande  laceria,  et  carpinteros,  et 
ferreros,  et  pedreros,  porque  usan  mucho  a  ferir  et  son  fuerte  de 
manos;  et  otrosi  de  los  carniceros,  por  razon  que  usan  niatar  las  cosas 
vivas  et  esparcer  la  sangre  dellas:  et  aun  cataban  otra  cosa  en 
escogiendolos  que  fuesen  bien  faccionadas  de  membros  para  ser 
recios,  et  fuertes  et  ligeros.  Et  esta  manera  de  escoger  usaron  los 
antiguos  muy  grant  tiempo;  mas  porque  despues  vieron  muchas 
vegadas  que  estos  atales  non  habiendo  vergiienza  olvidaban  todas 
estas  cosas  sobredichas,  et  en  logar  de  vincer  sus  enemigos  venciense 
ellos,  tovieron  por  bien  los  sabidpres  destas  cosas  que  catasen  homes 
para  esto  que  hobiesen  naturalmiente  en  si  vergiienza.  Et  sobresto 
dixo  un  sabio  que  habie  nombre  VEGECIO  que  fablo  de  la  ordeu  de 
caballeria,  que  la  vergiienza  vieda  al  caballero  que  non  fuya  de  la 
batalla,  et  por  ende  ella  le  face  ser  vencedor;  ca  mucho  tovieron  que 
era  mejor  el  homo  flaco  et  sofridor,  que  el  fuerte  et  ligero  para  foir. 
Et  por  esto  sobre  todas  las  otras  cosas  cataron  que  fuesen  homes 
porque  se  guardasen  de  facer  cosa  por  que  podiesen  caer  en  ver- 
gtienza:  et  porque  estos  fueron  escogidos  de  buenos  logares  et  algo, 
que  quiere  tan  to  decir  en  lenguage  de  Espana  como  bien,  por  eso  los 
llamaron  fijosdalgo,  que  muestra  atanto  como  fijos  de  bien.  Et  en 
algunos  otros  logares  los  llamaron  gentiles,  et  tomaron  este  nombre  de 
gentileza  que  muestra  atanto  como  nobleza  de  bondat,  porque  los 
gentiles  fueron  nobles  homes  et  buenos,  et  vevieron  mas  ordenada- 
mente  que  las  otras  gentes.  Et  esta  gentileza  aviene  en  tres  maneras; 
la  una  por  linage,  la  segunda  por  saber,  et  la  tercera  por  bondat  de 
armas  et  de  costumbres  et  de  maneras.  Et  comoquier  qiie  estos  que  la 
ganan  por  su  sabidoria  6  por  su  bondat,  son  con  derecho  llamados  nobles 
et  gentiles,  mayormiente  lo  son  aquellos  que  la  han  por  linage  antigua- 
miente,  et  facen  buena  vida  porque  les  vLene  de  luene  como  por 
heredat:  et  por  ende  son  mas  encargados  de  facer  bien  et  guardarse 
de  yerro  et  de  malestanza;  ca  non  tan  solamiente  quando  lo  facen 
resciben  dano  et  vergiienza  ellos  mismos,  ma  aun  aquellos  onde  ellcs 
vienen." 


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